Tango si extaz printre cei vii si cei morti

Amintiri de la o altă finală de Cupă Mondială.

“Oamenii se cățărau pe stâlpi, se îmbrățișau și sărutau pământul, aruncau petarde fumigene și fluturau steagurile alb-albastre ale Argentinei. Strigătele lor se contopeau într-un urlet asurzitor care inunda orașul.”

“Dar ceea ce a fost cel mai impresionant s-a petrecut după victorie. Meciul s-a terminat și a început sărbătoarea, într-o explozie de energie și bucurie cum rar poți vedea în altă parte. Era o fericire pură, o exaltare generală, un extaz pe care doar religia îl poate oferi celor mai devotați. Oamenii dansau peste tot în Buenos Aires, urcați pe chioșcuri de ziare, pe monumente și pe tomberoane.”

Cântau și se alăturau altora în cercuri uriașe, învârtindu-se neîncetat.

“Muchachos, imnul selecționatei, era urlat de sute de voci răgușite oriunde mergeai prin oraș, până într-acolo încât i-am învățat și noi versurile doar ascultându-le. Iar porteños erau convinși ca în noaptea victoriei, și cei din Recoleta au contribuit la triumf, alături de Diego și de părinții săi, sfânta familie a fotbalului argentinian, care au privit din ceruri, împreună cu toate sufletele plecate, marea finală proiectată pe un imens ecran galactic. În Argentina, până și morții sunt chemați să facă galerie.”

Continuă să citești aici, la pagina 14

@Guggenheim

Yayoi Kusama’s immersive *Infinity Mirrored Room – Dancing Lights That Flew Up to the Universe*

Soft Shuttlecock by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen

Lighthouse

At the tip of Long Island stands the Montauk Point Lighthouse, the oldest lighthouse in New York. Commissioned by President George Washington, the lighthouse was completed in 1796. and remains one of the oldest continuously operating lighthouses in the United States.

Its red-brick tower retrofitted long time ago with fresnel lenses guided for two centuries ships past the treacherous shoals of Montauk Point.

Fallen Angels, Rising Angels

Summer makes sleeping outdoors irresistible

…even when the bed is anything but quiet and comfortable.

Moonrise

Animals

The Ark exhibit in Brooklyn is a good reminder that every impossible project begins with one person everyone else thinks is crazy. Then it started raining, and suddenly he’s remembered as the visionary.

Duchamp@MOMA

And another Duchamp at MNAC in Bucharest, Romania

And counter culture in New York

Pre Pride March in Tompkins Park , East Village, New York City

In New York, things happen without much fanfare. Or perhaps there is plenty of fanfare, but there are simply so many events that it’s impossible to keep track of them all. More often than not, you discover them by accident.

Tompkins Park , East Village, New York City

I was wandering through the Lower East Side, my steps carrying me toward the East Village and eventually Midtown. I decided to make a brief detour down an alley inside Tompkins Square Park, just to see if anything was going on. That’s when I stumbled upon a massive pre-Pride gathering.

It was the prelude to a march from Tompkins Square Park to Stonewall, scheduled to begin around 8 p.m.

My one-minute detour quietly dissolved into more than two hours. There was no ticket, no grand announcement, no carefully planned itinerary—just one of those moments that New York seems to create effortlessly. You turn a corner expecting nothing, and suddenly you find yourself in the middle of a celebration.

As I watched the celebration unfold, one thought kept returning: I wish the people coming out of a Calvinist church after Sunday service looked as happy as these people in the park. Here, joy wasn’t preached—it was lived. It was a reminder that happiness, wherever it is found, has a way of looking remarkably like grace.

Book Launch: AT THE JAIL ON EASTER ISLAND

NEW MERIDIAN ARTS PRESS AND FLYINGMONK MEDIA presents

AT THE JAIL ON EASTER ISLAND
A Collection of Travel Essays

AT THE JAIL ON EASTER ISLAND, published by New Meridian Arts, is both a travel narrative and a meditation on myth, memory, and the human bond with sacred landscapes, continually reshaped by those who tell them. It is a book about listening — to stones, winds, and forgotten voices — and about rediscovering the world as the ancients once did: as a sacred story still unfolding beneath our feet.

“Radu Polizu takes us with him on a fast paced, adventurous, colorful, and personal journey through Australia, Tasmania, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island. From the spectacular skies, frightening insects, and stories of the Aboriginal songlines, to the contrasting and colorful landscapes of Tasmania. From the mysterious giant stone heads on Easter Island and their stories, to a realm of mist, mountains, and ancestral power of New Zealand and the coexistence of myth and reality in current-day Hawaii, all the chapters are enriched with personal encounters. keen observations, and humorous asides.”

OLIVIA CARRESCIA – documentary filmmaker

“Journeying through the Pacific felt like stepping into a world where legends walked beside me, guiding my path and inviting me to listen to the whispers of the land and its people.”

RADU POLIZU

AT THE JAIL ON EASTER ISLAND is available on Flyingmonk Media and on Amazon

Counter Culture in Berlin

The news about West Berlin’s counterculture during the Cold War reached even behind the Iron Curtain. The city seemed like an impossible island of freedom surrounded by the gray reality of communism.

Much of this cultural explosion was made possible by a massive infusion of money from the West German government, which saw West Berlin not only as a political symbol but as a cultural fortress.

Artists, musicians, filmmakers, and intellectuals were drawn to this strange urban experiment, attracted by the subsidies, the freedom, and the possibility of creating outside the usual rules of society. And for good reason.

When I arrived in New York at the end of the 1980s, I discovered that West Berlin’s cultural budget was reportedly three times larger than the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts for the entire United States.

Since then, I had wanted to visit West Berlin and see whether its legendary punk scene was truly crazier than what I had witnessed in New York’s East Village or Alphabet City. No matter that times changed and gentrification marched over both cities.

Because young men living in West Berlin were exempt from compulsory military service, the city became a magnet for artists, pacifists, anarchists, students, and musicians. Kreuzberg, pressed against the Berlin Wall and largely ignored by investors who saw little value in a neighborhood trapped at the edge of the Western world, offered cheap rents and abandoned buildings that ended up occupied by squatters always in fights with the police trying to evict them.

The heart of the neighborhood was the legendary SO36 club, which, alongside London’s Roxy and New York’s CBGB, became one of the temples of punk culture. In its smoky rooms, while young musicians created a sound that was raw, angry, and completely uninterested in commercial success, figures like David Bowie and Iggy Pop passed through.

Across the Wall, in Friedrichshain, young punks, musicians, artists, and dissidents dressed in torn leather jackets worn like protest flags and with unconventional hairstyles gathered in churches where the authorities allowed a limited degree of independence. Here, rebellion existed under the permanent shadow of the East German Stasi, who infiltrated concerts, monitored musicians, and harassed anyone who refused to look like an idealized image of the socialist citizen.

When the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989, the two underground worlds suddenly merged. The Oberbaum Bridge, once a heavily guarded border crossing between two hostile systems, became the physical and symbolic connection between Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain.

Today, much of that raw edge has been softened by the relentless pressure of gentrification. Buildings once defended by squatters are now occupied by luxury apartments. Independent record stores have been replaced by designer boutiques, and cafés serving fair-trade espresso stand where activists once planned protests. Yet beneath the polished surface, traces of the old spirit remain, of a time when the city’s perfection was the freedom to be gloriously imperfect.

The Wall

(From the short story “Sealing a sentence with a kiss.”)

“…And then there was the Wall. Invisible from many streets until the very last moment, it lurked behind buildings like an unpleasant truth everyone knew and tried to ignore, but nobody could escape. Even the Brandenburg Gate had been imprisoned. Although it stood inside East Berlin, ordinary East Germans were kept away from it by another barrier. The communist authorities apparently feared that workers and peasants, if allowed too close to a monument built by Prussian kings, might somehow become infected with dangerous imperialistic thoughts.

“What terrible curse had befallen the people of eastern Germany? They switched from a fascism named Nazism to another labeled Communism. The omnipresent gaze of the Gestapo was replaced by the invisible ears of the Stasi. One dictatorship marched in jackboots; the other preferred gray suits and endless files. Both demanded obedience and cultivated fear. And for millions, the Berlin Wall was less a border than the latest chapter in a tragedy that had already begun under a different flag.”

“One afternoon I wandered through the streets around the Gate, with no destination in mind. I turned down a quiet side street that suddenly… it ended. There was no intersection. Only a large white sign that read HALT. Beyond it stood a narrow path and a concrete wall. For a few seconds, I simply stared, trying to understand what I was seeing. Then two border guards rode past on a motorcycle along the patrol road that ran beside the Wall. A few meters away, another sign: a crossed-out camera beside the word VERBOTEN, printed in letters so large they seemed to shout. Right when I was ready to take the shot. Then I thought better of it.”

“It was my first encounter with the Berlin Wall. Until that moment, it had been an abstraction, a political symbol repeated endlessly in newspapers and foreign radio. Standing before it, I understood that it was something far simpler and infinitely more terrifying, a prison wall built around an entire city to keep ordinary people inside.”

“Ever since that encounter, I had wanted to see the other side of the wall, to scribble on the concrete that had imprisoned millions and divided families for a generation. It represented the physical shape of fear, the architecture of submission, built by rulers who claimed to protect their people while making sure they could never leave.”

“So I wandered through the streets of the reunited city, hunting for remnants of the Wall. Here and there, the Wall still surfaced, like an old scar that no amount of cosmetic surgery could completely conceal. History has a peculiar sense of humor: civilizations capable of raising cathedrals, pyramids, and palaces are often remembered for the ugliest things they construct.”

“Eventually, I arrived at the East Side Gallery, where the longest surviving stretch has been transformed into an outdoor canvas. Artists from around the world had turned the instrument of imprisonment into one of expression, in the most fitting revenge imaginable. The Wall of silence now it had become a place where everyone was encouraged to express themselves.”

“And here was “The Kiss”. Brezhnev and Honecker locked forever in their famous socialist embrace, lips pressed together with a commitment proved wrong by history. Dmitri Vrubel’s mural has something wonderfully absurd about it. It was impossible not to smile.”

“The mural had outlived both men, the country they ruled, the ideology they celebrated, and even the Wall on which it was first painted. Their kiss, intended to symbolize the eternal brotherhood of socialism, had become an international joke, an even better irony than the ugly architecture on which it was painted.”

(From the short story “Sealing a sentence with a kiss.”)

Becoming Non-Human

A human being becomes non-human first in the imagination of others. Before there are prisons, camps, exclusions, or persecutions, there is usually a change in language. A person becomes first a category: a foreigner who may be an enemy, a social or sexual deviant defined as a threat, or an inferior creature, a burden. The individual disappears, replaced by a concept created by those who hold power.

The law becomes the instrument of this transformation.

Decrees – Jewish Museum, Berlin, Germany

The most dangerous laws are not always those that announce cruelty openly. Often, they arrive dressed in the language of order, security, tradition, efficiency, or necessity. “We are simply regulating a situation,” defines who belongs and who does not.

Step by step, the person loses pieces of their humanity. First, they lose equality. Then they lose voice. Then they lose the ability to participate fully in society. Eventually, they lose the understanding that their suffering matters.

The extraordinary danger lies in the fact that dehumanization rarely requires extraordinary people. It can be carried out by ordinary individuals performing ordinary tasks: a stamped document, a check on a list, an enforced regulation.

The violence becomes invisible because it has been transformed into administration. A person is no longer expelled by hatred; they are removed by procedure. They are not attacked because someone is angry; they are excluded because a system has decided that exclusion is reasonable. There is no human tragedy. Just official language. The creation of non-humans is done by changing what others are allowed to see.

The blueprint of Germany after 1933 is quietly resurfacing around the world. It does not return wearing brown shirts or swastikas. It returns in new suits that borrow old methods: people becoming categories, unfettered nationalism, surveillance, social scores, wars renamed “special military operations,” and political manifestos that promise national renewal while steadily narrowing the space for dissent and rights. Only the symbols have changed; the grammar of power feels unsettlingly familiar.

Remembering the absence, Berlin, Germany

A stroll in Berlin

(From the short story “Sealing a sentence with a kiss.”)

“A deafening silence. It seemed like watching a movie with the sound turned off, while people were walking, jogging, exercising, and talking all around me. But the plaza was cloaked in silence, all voices lost in whispers spilling along the alleys.”

“The hilly slope in front, covered in grass, actually the roof of the underground train station, was full of people lying down and chatting, while kids were playing around. A few cars timidly swooshed nearby. But somehow everything felt like dunked in an invisible weaving that absorbed all surrounding noise.”

“And, no, it was not a lazy Sunday afternoon. But a busy midweek one when I emerged from Berlin’s underbelly smack in the middle of Potsdamer Platz, coming from the airport. And the contrast could not be stronger if I did not come from Bucharest’s mayhem, where the cacophony of horns mixed in an always snarled traffic made you feel like escaping to the woods. But nothing signaled this change.”

“The crowded airport, the train to the city, the people talking loudly on the platforms, and confusion in buying the tickets were all the regular mores of a busy city, but somehow all vanished by a miracle when I exited the station in the middle of one of the busiest places in Mitte.”

“I jaywalked over the four-lane road on my way to my hotel with no cars coming on either lane, leaving me with my thoughts unimpeded by a concert of horns. I crossed again, waiting at a traffic light, and no Audis, BMWs, or Mercedes were waiting to charge like bulls when the light changed, as you see in Bucharest’s clogged city center. Normal cars for normal people.”

“And yes, it struck me that after seven weeks on and off Bucharest, with its city center that tried hard to skew my societal norms, I realized that I was, once again, surrounded by normal people in Berlin. No enlargements of any kind, no duck lips, no fancy clothing, no expensive cars, but just regular, nice people riding bikes everywhere, going to work or meeting friends for a drink without the desire to be seen and “Instagrammed”. I felt a breath of fresh air exuding from Berlin…”

(From the short story “Sealing a sentence with a kiss.”)

Sensual Berlin

Brancusi@Neue National Galerie, Berlin, Germany

Princess X, Brancusi@Neue National Galerie, Berlin, Germany

The curators begged Brancusi to remove his sculpture Princess X from the Salon des Indépendants in Paris for an impending visit of the Prime Minister. “You could not march the Minister past a pair of balls” they said. So is this sculpture a portrait or a phallus?

Feminism in Socialism@Neue National Galerie, Berlin, Germany

“Ewa Partum is one of the first artists in Poland to create feminist art… Partum fights for women’s emancipation in her works and in the spring of 1960, a Warsaw gallery exhibits her series of photo collages Self-identification. The artist shows her naked body in Warsaw’s public space: in front of the seat of government, in front of the traffic police on the street or in a queue in front of a grocery store.”

Fogged Sculpture Garden, Neue National Galerie, Berlin, Germany

Several photo collages are censored shortly after the exhibition’s opening. During the exhibition the artist reads a text titled Self-identification, in the nude, for the assembled public. In it, she explains that she will continue to make nude appearances until the position of women artists on the art market and in museum collections is equal to that of their male peers. After reading the manifesto, Partum steps nude in front of the gallery and confronts a pair of newly weds just leaving the adjacent registry office. The artist develops this motif further in Women, Marriage is against You. In this 1980 performance, she wears a wedding dress that she cuts into pieces, in the end presenting herself nude before the audience. It is a courageous attempt to denounce traditional values….”

Marina Abramovic, Balkan Erotic Epic Exhibition@Gopius Bau, Berlin, Germany

“Across ancient traditions in the Balkans and beyond, the Earth was understood as a living body, one that could be nourished, summoned or awakened through ritual. Acts of erotic display and invocation once served as tools of survival. Gestures tied to fertility, harvest and protection linked human desire to the cycles of nature. The penis and vulva were seen as symbols of cosmic energy carried as protective charms, carved into stone or evoked in communal rites.”

“In her work cycle Balkan Erotic Epic, Marina Abramović returns to these rituals to reclaim the ecological and spiritual possibilities of the region’s vernacular practices. However, rather than staging authentic reenactments of these communal initiatives, she uses the grotesque and the absurd as tools to challenge social taboos deeply ingrained in the collective consciousness. While acknowledging the region’s rich cultural heritage, this restaging also challenges familiar stereotypes that have long portrayed the Balkans and its people as wild, close to nature or exceptionally virile.”

“All energy we have in our bodies is sexual energy. We can use it for creativity or spiritual matters. Or we can repress it and then it becomes aggression, war, anger and torture. It’s so interesting to see how such transformations were organized in a differ- ent society based on rituals.”

Marina Abramović

Vigilenta Organului

Victoria and Marian Zidaru@MNAC, Bucharest, Romania

…Mi-a luat ceva vreme să ajung la MNAC după inaugurare. Inițialele lui îmi păreau mai degrabă niște litere căzute din cerul unei creații întrerupte de o disfuncție lingvistică decât numele unui muzeu. Știam că Muzeul Național de Artă Contemporană era undeva la Parlament, prin labirinturile clădirii pe care noi, cei care i-am trăit facerea, încă o numim Casa Poporului. O casă care nu a fost niciodată a poporului, ridicată la capătul unui bulevard numit pe atunci Victoria Socialismului, la care noi adăugasem, cu firescul vremii, „asupra Capitalei”. Poate tocmai din cauza acestor reziduuri istorice am evitat locul atâția ani. Nu mă atrăgea ideea de a contempla triumful megalomaniei turnate în beton peste un gol monumental. Într-o zi însă, acum ceva vreme, am decis că trebuie să fac drumul. Auzisem despre sălile uriașe ale muzeului, spații la care alte muzee din România nici nu puteau visa.

Am traversat Parcul Izvor și m-am îndreptat hotărât spre intrarea colosului.

– Ah, nu puteți pe aici… Intrarea este pe partea cealaltă, îmi spune unul dintre paznici.

– Adică unde, pe partea cealaltă? l-am întrebat, privind clădirea care părea să ocupe jumătate din oras.

– Urcați dealul și mergeți pe trotuar până ajungeți în partea opusă.

Am pornit la deal, pe o caldura sufocanta, pe lângă hoteluri care nu existau când se remodelase orașul și, trecând pe lângă o altă intrare, am încercat să arunc o privire înăuntru.

Dintr-o gheretă a ieșit un tânăr cu ochelari de soare și aerul unui securist aflat în stagiatură.

– Pe cine căutați? Aveți treabă aici?

– Nu caut pe nimeni. Mă uitam. Dar ce este aici?

– Este interzis.

– În regulă, dar ce este?

– Nu v-am spus că este INTERZIS?!

Nu știam că „INTERZIS” poate funcționa și ca substantiv, desemnând un loc, o instituție și probabil chiar o filozofie de viață. Mi-am notat mental termenul pentru viitoare utilizări literare și am plecat mai departe…..

….Ajung la poartă și citesc plăcuțele: Senatul, diverse comisii si organizatii, iar undeva, aproape timid, scris cu litere mici, apărea și Muzeul Național de Artă Contemporană. Aproape că părea o notă de subsol la istoria puterii.

Pe alee, o barieră coborâtă și o gheretă din care iese organul cu sapca, evident vigilent, ca întotdeauna.

– Unde mergeți?

Deja călit de atâtea interdicții, răspund aproape vinovat:

– La muzeu…

Mă privește lung, cu acea privire care pare că a descoperit un complot internațional.

– De ce? … Vreti să vizitați?

……

(fragment din “Templul ascuns al artei contemporane”)

Art in Bucharest

Stefan Bertalan@MARe, Bucharest, Romania

Lia and Dan Perjovschi@Hanul Gabroveni, Bucharest, Romania

Three Museums

Frederic Storck and Cecilia-Cuţescu Museum, Bucharest Romania

Mihai Trifan@Muzeul de Artă Modernă și Contemporană Pavel Șușară, Bucharest, Romania

“Vasile Grigore” Art Museum, Bucharest, Romania

City of Heaven

When we arrived in Ouranopolis in the evening, we thought that we had crossed the border into Romania by accident. It seemed that almost everybody was speaking Romanian while the grills filled to the brim with skewers were funneling smoke columns to the Orthodox Olympus’ heavens. The main square under the Byzantine tower was full of groups performing Balkan traditional dances against the backdrop of the fishing boats bobbing gently in the harbor.

The color of the Aegean in Ouranoupoli, Greece

Perched on the narrow gateway to the monastic republic of Mount Athos, Ouranoupolis feels like a place suspended between worlds. Its name means “City of Heaven,” a relaxed and welcoming village with seaside tavernas, small shops, and a pace of life shaped by the presence of the Holy Mountain just beyond. It didn’t take us long to realize that the vast majority of the visitors were men spread around the restaurants’ tables along the shore. We saw them the next morning, with backpacks and bags, having a quick breakfast, ready to board the ship that would bring them to the Russian Monastery, a large complex inside the monastic peninsula.

The boat to Mount Athos, Ouranoupolis, Greece

The others, not so determined to go through the approval process to get inside the highly restricted peninsula, had to settle for a cruise along the peninsula’s shore from where they could see the world’s oldest living monastic communities hanging from the cliffs. Only a limited number of male pilgrims and visitors are admitted to the peninsula each day, while women have been prohibited from entering the peninsula for nearly a millennium.

Russian Monastery Complex, Mount Athos, Greece

Mount Athos is one of the most extraordinary places in Europe: a self-governing monastic community occupying a rugged peninsula in northern Greece. Although part of Greece, it governs itself through a council representing the twenty ruling monasteries. This autonomous arrangement has survived empires, wars, and political upheavals, making it one of the oldest continuously functioning self-governing communities in the world.

Simonopetra Monastery, Mount Athos, Greece

Often called the “Holy Mountain,” it has been a center of Orthodox Christian spirituality for more than a thousand years and is home to twenty monasteries, along with smaller hermitages and monastic settlements scattered across its forested slopes. It follows traditions that have changed little since Byzantine times, making it one of the last places in Europe where the rhythms of medieval monastic life still endure. Monks from Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, and other Orthodox countries live here, dedicating their lives to prayer, work, and contemplation.

Mount Athos is also a remarkable time capsule of the Byzantine world. Its monasteries preserve thousands of manuscripts, imperial decrees, icons, and documents, some of which exist nowhere else on Earth. Dominating the peninsula is the mountain itself, rising dramatically to over 2,000 meters above the Aegean Sea.

The cruise takes around 3 hours, giving just a glimpse of what may exist inside the peninsula. On the boat were also lots of men who stayed for a while on the peninsula – no more than 3 days per monastery – and brought their wives to admire from afar the forbidden territory.

We were pretty exhausted after our Balkan foray, and after arriving in Thessaloniki after a 90-minute ride, we took up the invitation of a newly discovered “quarter-millennium” old cousin – long story – and after a stroll by the bay, we went for the evening at the Olympion Theater in Aristotle Square to watch short movies made by the students of the Aristotle University Film School.

Ottoman Scent

The Thassians named it Neapolis; the Byzantines, Christoupolis; but the name that remains today, Kavala, was coined by the Ottomans. And the atmosphere they created lingers even today. After hopping cross-border and inland buses and renting cars around the Balkans, we thought about taking a break in this relaxed city.

The old quarter of Panagia climbs the peninsula above the harbor in a maze of cobbled lanes and colorful houses from where the birthplace of Egypt’s ruler, Muhammad Ali Pasha, overlooks the sea. It is one of those delightful historical twists that a man who transformed Egypt first opened his eyes in this northern Greek port.

Yet Kavala’s greatest charm lies not in monuments but in atmosphere. Fishing boats return to the harbor as they have for centuries, cafés fill with conversation, and the scent of the sea drifts through the streets. Time itself appears to move differently here and locals sit comfortably in the shade, watching the harbor and proving that not every moment needs to be productive to be worthwhile.

In Kavala, conversation is elevated to something approaching a civic duty. A single coffee can last for hours, accompanied by animated debates, laughter, and the occasional philosophical reflection. Arrive at sunrise and the tables are already populated by retirees discussing politics, football, fishing conditions, and the shortcomings of every government since antiquity. To an outsider, it may seem that nobody is working, yet somehow the city functions perfectly well.

One of Kavala’s most unexpected twists is its aqueduct, the grand Kamares. Rising above the modern streets like a Roman monument, it is in fact largely an Ottoman reconstruction.

Not far outside the city are the ruins of Philippi, founded by King Philip II of Macedon, once among the most important cities of the ancient world. Romans fought a decisive battle here, and centuries later Apostle Paul preached in Philippi, establishing one of Europe’s earliest Christian communities.

What makes Kavala so memorable is not merely its monuments, but the unhurried rhythm of life that lingers from morning coffee to late-night conversation. By the time you leave, you realize that the city has quietly woven itself into your memory through the scent of the sea, the murmur of the cafés, and the golden light on the waterfront that will follow you for days to come.

Emerald Island

In the 7th century BC, the leader of Paros consulted the legendary Oracle of Delphi, who instructed him to establish a great city on the island of Aeria—today’s Thassos. Encouraged by divine authority, the settlers crossed the sea and colonized the island, with or without the locals’ permission. Hearing this story, I could not help wondering whether the war-makers of today’s “civilized world” might appear more credible if they openly claimed to be obeying the wishes of an oracle rather than cloaking their invasions in the usual assortment of mediocre justifications.

There is no emerald to be found in the “emerald island” of Thassos, but pine-covered mountains, crystal-clear beaches, and rich history stretching back to antiquity. The island was once famous for its gold mines and marble quarries attracting traders who settled here like today East Europeans who buy houses and spend the summer in the green island.

But the charm of the island’s settlements consist in their winding streets, stone architecture, and spectacular mountain views of its villages. It is an invitation to explore an island, full both history and a sense of stepping back into a slower, more traditional Greece that you find in the village hidden in the center of the island.

The most famous of these villages is Theologos, a beautifully preserved settlement that once served as the island’s administrative center during Ottoman times.

Strolling through its narrow cobbled lanes, visitors pass handsome stone mansions with wooden balconies. The village retains a relaxed, timeless atmosphere, with shaded squares, old churches, and tavernas serving local specialties.

Even higher in the mountains lies Kastro, one of the island’s oldest and most secluded settlements. Perched dramatically on a rocky plateau, Kastro was founded in medieval times as a refuge from pirate raids that frequently plagued the Aegean coast. Its isolated location made it easier to defend, and for centuries villagers lived among sturdy stone houses clustered around the Church of Saint Athanasios.

Aigai

The Greek village of Vergina lays just two hours away from Bitola of North Macedonia. But to get there we had to spend more than a day, taking a bus to Skopje, another one to Thessaloniki, from where we drove one hour in a rented car. But in this forgotten village, beneath a grassy mound we found one of Greece’s greatest archaeological treasures: the royal tombs of ancient Aigai. Imagining the repeat of the Thracian tombs of Kazanlak in Bulgaria, I was hopelessly looking for several entrances in the mound, just to understand that all four tombs were buried under the grassy little hill.

For more than two thousand years, these burial chambers remained hidden from looters, preserving a remarkable snapshot of the world of the Macedonian kings, representing a real time capsule sealed since the age of Alexander the Great and unearthed in 1977.

Aigai was the original capital of the Macedonian kingdom, where kings were crowned, celebrated, and ultimately laid to rest. Later the political power shifter to Pella, one hour north from here, but the hundreds of ancient burials surrounding Aigai are a testimony of its past glory.

The main attraction is the tomb generally believed to belong to Philip II of Macedon, who paved the way for the conquests of his son, Alexander the Great where the archeologists found golden wreaths, finely crafted weapons, silver vessels, and an ornate gold casket decorated with the famous Macedonian star.

Nearby lie the tomb of Philip’s fourth wife who was killed at his death and another royal tomb, thought to contain the remains of Alexander IV, Alexander’s son, whose life became entangled in the power struggles that followed his father’s death.

To visit the tombs you descend in an underground museum built around and on top of the tombs themselves. The atmosphere is deeply mysterious, with the dim light and hushed voices creating an almost sacred sense of presence. As you move through the tombs, it is easy to imagine that the spirits of the ancient kings still linger there, silently watching over their resting place.

Lost among Statues

When you arrive in Skopje, day or night, your first reaction is “What the heck is this?” You are watched from all directions by gigantic statues of kings riding horses or monks brooding over their writings, individual statues or group statues, political events statues or culturally significant statues, statues of killed and killers.

Philip II with his entire family including Olympia, his 4th wife who most probably killed him in Skopje, North Macedonia

After a while, you begin to understand that Skopje, as the capital of North Macedonia, has manufactured its history based on its name and collected the history of the entire Macedonia in the heart of a modern city devastated relatively recently by a powerful earthquake.

The Old Stone Bridge, Skopje, North Macedonia

And when you walk its squares and by the Vardar river promenade, it quickly becomes apparent that modesty was never part of the urban planning brief.

Much of the city’s modern appearance comes from the ambitious redevelopment projects of the early twenty-first century, which transformed the Macedonian capital into a grand open-air gallery of statues, columns, domes, triumphal arches, and historical figures. Some visitors compare it to ancient Rome, others to a movie set, while many simply stand in the main square trying to figure out where all the monuments came from and whether there might be room for a few more.

At the heart of it all rises the colossal equestrian statue officially called “Warrior on a Horse,” whose identity remains one of the Balkans’ least convincing open secrets. Towering above the square, it is joined by an entire cast of kings, revolutionaries, saints, scholars, and national heroes, all apparently assembled for a gathering of historical proportions. The effect is less a city center and more a historical convention where every century has sent a representative.

The result is a fascinating exercise in nation-building through architecture and public art. Critics see it as an attempt to manufacture a grand historical narrative, while supporters view it as a celebration of national identity. Most visitors simply enjoy the spectacle. After all, few capitals offer the opportunity to encounter so much history—real, remembered, interpreted, reimagined, and occasionally enlarged to three times its natural size—in the course of a single stroll.

Mustafa Pasha Mosque, Skopje, North Macedonia

Yet beyond the statues, Skopje’s true charm lies elsewhere. In the Ottoman-era Old Bazaar, among tea houses, mosques, workshops, and cobbled lanes, one finds the city’s older and more organic layers. Here, history did not arrive on a flatbed truck to be installed in a public square; it accumulated slowly over centuries through trade, faith, and everyday life.

Perhaps that is what makes Skopje so intriguing. It is a city where the past is constantly being discussed, interpreted, and sometimes reinvented. The giant statues may tell one version of the story, while the old neighborhoods tell another. Together they create a capital that is equal parts history, ambition, theatre, and Balkan imagination.

The City of Consuls

Heraclea Lyncestis, Bitola, North Macedonia

To my surprise, we could not rent a car. Actually, we could, but we weren’t allowed to take it over the border without a 5-working-day paper processing, many additional fees, and separate insurance for each country whose border we wanted to cross. I called several agencies in Thessaloniki and got the same response, if they even allowed the convoluted process. Crazy! We used to rent cars and cross borders in Western Europe with no questions asked. But not in Greece. Maybe we could do it because we never asked before? So we decided to cross borders by bus and rent a car in each country. Except in North Macedonia, where we took a bus from Skopje to Ohrid and another to Bitola, and found ourselves in one of North Macedonia’s most elegant and historically layered cities.

The city’s roots reach back to antiquity to Heraclea Lyncestis, founded by Philip II of Macedon in the fourth century BC. Today, the ruins of Roman roads, baths, theaters, and exquisite early Christian mosaics bear witness to centuries of prosperity.

Known during the Ottoman era as the “City of Consuls,” Bitola was once the diplomatic heart of European Turkey – Rumelia -, a place where great powers maintained consulates and merchants crossed paths, sharing stories. It was a time when Bitola was among the most cosmopolitan cities of the Balkans.

Bitola’s heart beats along the famous Širok Sokak, affectionately known as the Street of the Consuls, where once Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy, Romania, and several other powers maintained diplomatic missions. Today the diplomats are gone, but the grand facades remain. Cafés spill onto the sidewalks, locals parade up and down, and visitors quickly discover that the city’s favorite pastime may well be drinking coffee while discussing the world’s affairs in great detail.

Magnolia Square, Bitola, North Macedonia

At the end of the elegant boulevard lies Magnolia Square, the city’s gathering place and living room, dominated by the minarets of two mosques, the clock tower and the equestrian statue of Philip II.

Just a few streets away, the past meanders through the narrow streets of the Old Bazaar. Narrow lanes weave between workshops, mosques, old caravanserais, and small shops where merchants continue centuries-old traditions.

The old Romanian School, Bitola, North Macedonia

Among the many communities that called Bitola home were the Vlachs, or Aromanians, a Romance-speaking people scattered throughout the mountains and towns of the southern Balkans. During the nineteenth century, Romania took a keen interest in supporting the linguistic and cultural identity of the Aromanians, and in 1880, one of the most important Romanian schools in the Ottoman Balkans was established in Bitola. Teachers trained in Romania taught language, literature, history, and science, while many graduates would go on to become teachers, clergy, merchants, and community leaders throughout the Balkans. The school lasted until the 1945 Communist takeover of Romania, when it was closed.

Jerusalem of the Balkans

Perched on the shores of one of Europe’s oldest and deepest lakes, the city of Ohrid was known as the “Jerusalem of the Balkans.” The tradition claims that the city once held 365 churches, one for every day of the year, which made Ohrid one of the most important spiritual centers of the Orthodox Christian world. The city, which started as a prosperous settlement along the Roman Via Egnatia, gradually morphed into a Slavic and Byzantine stronghold, flowering between the 9th and 11th centuries, as the religious heart of the First Bulgarian Empire.

For centuries, Ohrid passed between Byzantine, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Ottoman rulers, each leaving traces of stone houses, hidden chapels, and bells echoing over the lake and its cobbled streets. Most of the intimate churches, preserved during Ottoman rule, are tucked into the steep labyrinth of the old town and seem woven directly into the fabric of daily life.

The city is inseparable from the story of Saints Cyril and Methodius, the creators of the Glagolitic alphabet, the predecessor of the Cyrillic alphabet. Their disciples, Saint Clement of Ohrid and Saint Naum, arrived in the region and established one of the first great Slavic literary and religious schools, which transformed Ohrid into one of the cradles of Slavic literacy and spirituality.

Church of Holy Virgin Mary, Ohrid, North Macedonia

After the Byzantine conquest of eastern Bulgaria in 971, czar Samuel shifted the political and religious focus toward Ohrid, the city becoming the seat of the Bulgarian Patriarchate. Saint Sophia functioned as the cathedral church of this patriarchate, the local tradition maintaining that Bulgarian tsars — especially Samuel and possibly his heirs — were enthroned or ceremonially recognized in Ohrid.

Saint Sophia was converted later into a mosque under Ottoman rule. Its remarkable frescoes were covered in plaster by the Turks until their rediscovery in modern times.

Church of Saint Jovan the Theologian at Kaneo, Ohrid, North Macedonia

Among the city’s most iconic monuments is the Church of Saint John at Kaneo, dramatically perched on a cliff above the lake, appearing almost suspended between water and sky. Built probably in the 13th century, the small Byzantine church combines Armenian and Byzantine architectural influences.

Church of Saints Clement and Panteleimon, of Ohrid, North Macedonia

Roman mosaics, early Christian, and medieval ruins could be found around the restored monastery complex at Plaošnik that marks the place where Saint Clement founded his monastery and literary school.

South of the city, near the Albanian border, lies the serene Monastery of Saint Naum, founded in the early 10th century by Saint Naum himself. Surrounded by springs feeding the lake, the monastery became both a religious sanctuary and a center of manuscript production.

Frescos in Saint Naum Monastery, Ohrid, North Macedonia

Cleavage

Sofia stands in the heart of the city center at the intersection of the main boulevards. You’d say that she represents the city’s symbol carrying in its wisdom the city’s name but this is far from truth. Because the name of the city was coined after Agia Sophia, the 6th century church close to the main cathedral. So what’s the story with the statue and why it’s there? It turned out that at the fall of communism in that location was a statue of Lenin that in a rush was taken out with no immediate plans of replacement.

After some time, the city chose this lady, who created right away a controversy because of her cleavage. The Bulgarian religious conservatives felt offended to have a woman with such cleavage, apparently not fit to enter the numerous churches that pepper the country. But, somehow, Lady Sofia outlasted the controversy. My suggestion was that if they are still unhappy with her, to put Lenin back on the post and add cleavage to his statue. 🙂 It would be the rage of the town!

Alexander Nevski Cathedral, Sofia, Bulgaria

Near the ancient Saint Sophia with its Byzantine arches stands imposing, exuding less spirituality than sheer power of the church and state, the Alexandre Nevski Cathedral, looking like a giant pile of steamed Brussels Sprouts. It was originally named after St Cyril and Methodius, who established the Glagolitic alphabet, the one before the Cyrillic used in this part of the world. And it seems that their names will be added again to the massive cathedral, scrapping the Russian prince.

St George Church inside the Bulgarian Presidential palace, Sofia

But fortunately, some churches are less imposing, like the Church of St George, the oldest standing building in Sofia, constructed by the Romans in the early 4th century, which has five-layered frescoes from the 10th to the 14th centuries. From a Roman public building became a Christian church, a mosque under Ottoman rule, and then back to a church, to be tucked nowadays inside a courtyard surrounded by the Presidency and a luxury hotel.

Founded by the Thracian Serdi tribe and later transformed into the Roman city of Serdica, Sofia became the main administrative hub for Emperor Constantine the Great, who considered the city to be his own Rome. Byzantine, Bulgarian, and Ottoman passed by leaving behind walls and fortifications, churches, mosques, caravanserais, markets, mineral baths, layered into the urban fabric. The stratified archeology is visible in many places especially in the center where it was restored using modern bricks that some carry on them the whatsapp number of the company that did the renovation 🙂

Banya Banshi Mosque, completed in 1566, was designed by the legendary Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan. It is the only functioning mosque remaining in Sofia. Its name literally translates to “Head of the Baths” because it was built directly over natural thermal spas. It’s a pillar of Sofia’s, and one of many Bulgarian “Squares of Tolerance,” sitting just steps away from an Orthodox cathedral, a Catholic cathedral, and a synagogue to symbolize centuries of peaceful multi-faith coexistence in the heart of the Bulgarian capital.

LUNATICALLY NICOLAI PANAYOTOV@Sofia Art Galley

And it’s Vitosha Boulevard, the pedestrian street running through the heart of the city, with its uninterrupted, picturesque view of the snow-capped Vitosha Mountain. The vibe of the street is given by its numerous international cafes, and lively open-air restaurants that buzz with energy from morning until late at night.

Constantinople’s Rival

Veliko Trnovo from the Tsarevets Fortress, Bulgaria

Rising above the winding Yantra River, Tsarevets Fortress was once the heart of the Second Bulgarian Empire and one of the great medieval citadels of the Balkans. From the 12th to the 14th century, Veliko Tarnovo served as the Bulgarian capital, a city of kings, patriarchs, merchants, and monasteries suspended across steep hills.

Tsarevets Fortress seen from Trapezitsa Fortress , Veliko Trnovo, Bulgaria

The city became a rival to Constantinople in culture and ambition, earning the name “the Second Constantinople” among medieval chroniclers. Though much of Tsarevets was destroyed after the Ottoman conquest in 1393, the ruins still evoke the grandeur of a capital that controlled the mountain passes and trade routes of the Balkans for centuries.

St Peter and Paul Church, Veliko Trnovo, Bulgaria

Scattered throughout Veliko Tarnovo and the surrounding hills are remnants of medieval churches, many decorated with fragments of frescoes. Among the most remarkable is the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, founded during the reign of Tsar Ivan Asen II in the 13th century.

Hidden behind relatively austere stone walls survive extraordinary frescoes of saints with elongated faces and deep, almost melancholic eyes. The church was once the temporary seat of the Bulgarian Patriarchate after the fall of Trnovo to the Ottomans.

The Church of Nativity, Arbanasi, Bulgaria

But what may be the most memorable place in the entire country is a tiny village that seems to have slipped through a crack in the weaving of time. Arbanasi lies only a few kilometers from Veliko Trnovo. It was founded or expanded during the Ottoman period by wealthy merchants and craftsmen of Albanian families connected to the trade routes of the empire.

Arbanasi flourished between the 16th and 18th centuries, its families building houses that resemble small fortresses: thick stone walls, tiny windows, heavy wooden gates, and hidden courtyards designed to protect wealthy inhabitants from raids and instability.

The churches of Arbanasi are among the most astonishing in Bulgaria precisely because they hide their treasures so completely. Low, almost anonymous structures conceal interiors entirely covered in dense layers of frescoes: saints, prophets, martyrs, demons, biblical scenes, and vivid visions of heaven and hell crowd every surface.

ArbanasiThe Church of Nativity, Arbanasi, Bulgaria

The Church of Nativity is the oldest and most important church in Arbanasi. Modest-looking from the outside—almost like a fortified house—has its dark chambers painted from floor to ceiling in an explosion of post-Byzantine imagery.

One of its most striking features is the “Tree of Jesse,” where biblical lineage becomes a visual genealogy populated with prophets and even ancient philosophers, spanning centuries of additions, beginning in the late 1500s.

The Church of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, , Bulgaria

The Church of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel is slightly more austere. Its interior is still richly decorated with 17th-century frescoes depicting warrior saints, angels, and dramatic biblical narratives.

The Church of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel, Arbanasi, Bulgaria

Together with the fortified merchant houses, the Arbanasi churches create the impression of a hidden Christian world surviving quietly behind walls, preserving memory, faith, and identity through centuries of imperial change.

Old merchant house in Arbanasi, Bulgaria

From Czars to Communists

Perched dramatically on a rocky ridge above the river, Asen’s Fortress feels less like a ruin and more like the fragment of an impossible dream suspended above the Rhodope Mountains. Originally fortified by the Thracians and later expanded during the Byzantine era, the fortress guarded the road linking the plains of Thrace to the Aegean world, exuding even nowadays a frontier atmosphere. Its name comes from Tsar Ivan Asen II, who rebuilt and strengthened it in the 13th century as part of the medieval Bulgarian kingdom’s defense system. What survives today is dominated by the beautifully preserved Church of the Holy Mother of God, its stone walls and faded frescoes hanging above a precipice with astonishing defiance.

Hidden deeper within the Rhodope foothills lies Bachkovo Monastery, one of Bulgaria’s oldest and most atmospheric monasteries. Founded in the 11th century by Georgian nobles serving the Byzantine Empire, the monastery became a meeting place of Byzantine, Georgian, and Bulgarian spiritual traditions.

Bachkovo feels quieter and more inward-looking, its courtyards shaded by plane trees and its walls darkened by centuries of incense smoke. The monastery is especially renowned for its frescoes and for a miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary.

Further east, near Kazanlak, we slide back in history towards the ancient Thracian world that emerges from beneath grassy burial mounds scattered across the Valley of the Kings. The most famous, the Thracian Tomb of Kazanlak, is the eternal resting place of one of the warrior-aristocrats who dominated these lands before the arrival of Rome. The tomb dates from the 4th century BCE and preserves some of the finest Hellenistic frescoes ever discovered in the Balkans.

Outside of Kazanlak, the grassy mounds scattered across the valley appear almost natural from a distance, gentle undulations in the Bulgarian countryside. But hidden inside them are five more tombs of Thracian kings. Ostrusha, Shushmanets, Griffins, Helvetia, and Golyama Arsenalka each have their own character, with remnants of paint and geometric murals, while others are guarded by carved stone doors, mythological figures, or ritual chambers where horses were sacrificed for the dead ruler’s journey into the afterlife.

This is just a fragment of a vanished civilization admired by the Greeks for its warrior aristocracy and gold craftsmanship, yet leaving behind few written records of its own.

And when done with this ancient history, you fast-forward in time by climbing to the top of the mountain, where you are shockingly faced by Buzludzha, perhaps the strangest monument in the Balkans. It’s a gigantic concrete saucer abandoned on a mountaintop, battered by snow, wind, and history itself. Built in 1981 by the communist regime to commemorate the founding of the Bulgarian socialist movement, Buzludzha was designed as a futuristic temple of ideology, crowned with mosaics of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Bulgarian party leaders. After the fall of communism, the monument was abandoned and left to decay, its shattered windows and collapsing interiors transforming it into both a ruin and a symbol. Its red star sculpted in its tall tower was used for years as a target practice until nothing remained of it. Rising from the mist-covered Balkan peaks like a stranded spaceship, Buzludzha embodies at the same time the rise and the decay of a failed ideology, the historical tragedy that marked the twentieth century in Eastern Europe.

The Oldest City

The Roman Stadium of Philippopolis, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Plovdiv is one of Europe’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, with 8,000-year-old Thracian roots. Known first as Eumolpias, it later became Philippopolis, named after Philip II of Macedon, who conquered and fortified it in the 4th century BCE.

The city center developed over the old Roman Stadium, passing from Roman to Byzantine and eventually Ottoman rule, thanks to its strategic position along the ancient Via Egnatia, the famous road that connected Illyria to Constantinople. During this flow of history, the Greek and Roman Temples were replaced by mosaic-covered Byzantine churches, which would later give way to converted mosques. Under communism, brutalism, modernism, and monumental architecture spread across the city, creating a pastiche of architecture with official houses for everyone, living or dead: a House of the Newly Born, a House of the Newly-Weds, even a House of the Deceased.

Its most evocative layer today is the Old Town, where cobblestone streets climb a series of hills crowned with revival-era mansions from the 18th and 19th centuries. These houses, with their overhanging upper floors, painted façades, carved wooden ceilings, and hidden inner courtyards, reflect the wealth and confidence of the Bulgarian National Revival period.

Many were built directly over Roman and Byzantine ruins, some discovered purely by chance, like the Roman theater, uncovered after the owner of the house decided to plant a tree in his garden.

The mansions once belonged to merchants who traded across the Ottoman Empire, blending Balkan, Ottoman, and Central European influences into a distinctive architectural language, turning the Old Town into a living museum of inhabited houses rather than frozen ruins.

One of Kapana’s mural was the decor for a movie shoot, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

In the evening, people gather on the cobbled streets of Kapana, the bohemian quarter whose walls are covered now in gigantic graffiti, which was left in near ruin after the fall of communism, before slowly returning to life. Kapana’s discreet streetlights carry their own story. Connected to the city maternity ward through a separate electrical system, they flicker for a brief moment every time a child is born, announcing the event to the neighborhood while people raise their glasses and celebrate the city’s newest inhabitant.

Orthodoxy

No matter that I was born and lived 60 km from Bulgaria, I never felt the desire, while living under communism, to cross that border. It felt somehow oppressive, and our desires were always geared toward the western part of Europe, the forbidden fruit. And neither this time did I cross the nearby border; after a flight to Thessaloniki and a bus to Sofia, I rented a car and found myself in front of Boyana Church, near the capital. At the foot of the Vitosha Mountains, this UNESCO-protected church guards some of the most extraordinary medieval frescoes in Europe. Three layers of 11th-13th-century frescoes lie hidden beneath dark wooden beams and stone arches from where saints and kings gaze from the walls with startling humanity.

The day was sunny and warm, so we thought a hike up to the Seven Lakes would be a good idea. But we found the chairlift closed for maintenance, and the ascent had to be done in a battered 4×4 along a mountain track — road, path, or whatever it could be called — that completely shattered all my terrible stories about the horrendous roads of Tibet. The vehicle crawled up the mountainside through mud, one-meter-deep snow, spruce trees, and fields of violets, until suddenly the chaos of the climb opened onto an astonishing view. But in no way could we continue to the lakes covered in deep snow.

The half-baked plan of the day was to stay somewhere in the surrounding mountains, but in the end, we pushed to reach Plovdiv, not before we went for a stop at Rila Monastery, the spiritual heart of Bulgaria and its orthodox Christian religion.

Deep within the folds of the Rila Mountains, surrounded by forests and tumbling rivers, the monastery rises unexpectedly like a vision. Striped arcades in black and white, crimson frescoes glowing beneath domes, and mountain peaks closing around it like protective walls.

The monastery was founded by the hermit saint Ivan of Rila, and it became a refuge of Bulgarian culture during centuries of Ottoman rule, preserving language, faith, and identity in isolation high above the valleys. Few places in the Balkans combine wilderness, history, and spirituality with such power.

Much of this monumental work is associated with the painter Zahari Zograf, the most celebrated iconographer of the Bulgarian Revival period. Unlike the rigid anonymity of earlier Orthodox art, Zahari Zograf introduced fluidity and realism into his figures, quietly inserting himself into the eternal world he was painting.

Glass

Hyphen – Paul Neagu@Artwill

Paul Neagu at Artwill, Bucharest, Romania

An original and restless artistic mind, Paul Neagu was a creator who moved fluidly between drawing, sculpture, performance, and theoretical writing in search of a deeper language of form. He left the constraints of communist Romania with an imagination that refused confinement, eventually settling in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s, where his work gained wider recognition.

Neagu developed a personal mythology of symbols—most famously the “Hyphen,” a conceptual and visual device meant to connect opposites: body and spirit, East and West, material and idea. His sculptural works often appear both archaic and futuristic, as if unearthed from a forgotten civilization, while his performances explored the body as both instrument and site of meaning.

Beyond objects, Neagu was a thinker, articulating his ideas through manifestos and teaching, notably influencing a generation of artists at the Chelsea School of Art.

His work stands today as a bridge between cultures, disciplines, and ways of seeing, a continuous attempt to make visible the invisible structures that bind the world together.

Vintage

Prima zi in Bucuresti intru la metrou si incerc sa platesc cu telefonul. Ma apropii de cititoarele portocalii, ating cu telefonul si nu merge. Tot incercam de mai multe ori fara succes, cand aud o voce in spate a femeii care avea grija de porti:

“Nu mai incercati ca nu merge. Sunt vechi”

“Pai, nu ar trebui astea portocalii sa citeasca? Trebuie sa incerc cu cardul? o intreb.

“Ar trebui dar nu merg. Mergeti si luati bilet de la casa ca acolo merge,” imi spune dupa care adauga: “Astea-s vintage”

Spring

Easter

Sea

Protest

Vreau să pot dormi ca un câine din India

Vreau să pot dormi ca un câine din India

American Indians@Whitney

American Indian Community House Gathering at Whitney, New York City

At the 2026 Whitney Biennial, where provocative work and heated controversy tend to share space, we happened upon an unexpected event: Native American traditional dances and music.

The American Indian Community House had been hosting Socials since its founding in 1969. These are intimate gatherings akin to small powwows that extended a long-standing Indigenous way of living, gathering relations and friends from different tribal nations.

During the Biennial, the traditional dances created a striking juxtaposition, enacting community-building as living practice, transforming the museum into a space where Indigenous people gathered not as subject matter or aesthetic inspiration, but as themselves.

Wilfredo Lam@MOMA

Wilfredo Lam’s artistic trajectory reads like a map of mid-20^th century cultural crosscurrents, his life weaving together the avant-garde capitals of Europe with the Afro-Caribbean world of his Cuban roots. After years in Madrid absorbing Spanish modernism, he landed in Paris in 1938, where Picasso became both mentor and friend, introducing him to the ferment of European surrealism just as the continent edged toward war.

Lam’s circle expanded to include André Breton, who recognized in the Cuban painter’s synthesis of African, Caribbean, and European vocabularies. The paintings he developed after his return to Cuba in 1941 function as visual acts of resistance, dismantling colonial hierarchies.

His entire work brings on canvas demonic figures from Yoruba/Santeria, the African religious tradition brought by the slaves that influenced most of his work, a tradition that still reverberates throughout the island.

His exotic tropical paradise of colonial fantasy is actually a claustrophobic tangles of sugar cane stalks inhabited by towering hybrid figures with African masks, crescent breasts, and scissor-like limbs reminiscent of the ones that worked on the plantations.

Sex after Death

So here we are at the R RATING post about the sex life (and death) of the Moche. Without any prior context, Huaca de la Fertilidad, located near Huaca de la Luna outside Trujillo, can look like an unabashed celebration of uninhibited sexuality, presented by the guides as sexualidad social. The pathway is lined with statues of couples—and occasionally solitary figures—engaged in a surprising variety of intimate poses, leaving many visitors wondering if they have accidentally wandered into an ancient Andean version of erotic art gallery. Yet a visit to the superb Larco Museum in Lima quickly clarifies the story. There one discovers that these seemingly explicit statues are in fact enlarged reproductions of nearly two-thousand-year-old ceramics created by the Moche culture. Many of the originals are displayed in a dedicated room known as the museum’s Erotic Gallery, where in softly lit cases small clay figures quietly narrate the surprisingly candid sexual life—and afterlife—imagined by the Moche. Seen in this context, what first appears shocking begins to reveal itself as something more complex: a symbolic exploration of fertility, cosmology, and the mysterious connections the Moche perceived between life, death, and renewal.

In the mythology of the Moche culture, the hero Ai Apaec pursues the sun but must first die and descend into the underworld, Uku Pacha. With the help of a shaman woman, he regains his strength and eventually reunites with Pachamama, Mother Earth herself. Their fertile union beneath the celestial vault—symbolized by a great two-headed serpent—restores cosmic balance and from their encounter a tree of life emerges, linking the underworld, the earth, and the heavens, and giving birth to humanity.

This mythological vision occupies a central place in the art of the Moche, who flourished on Peru’s northern coast some 1,500 years ago. In the human realm, life follows the same principle of complementary forces known as yanantin: man and woman unite to create new life. Moche ceramics often show couples together in bed with their child, the visible fruit of that union. Yet Moche artists also portrayed sexual acts unrelated to reproduction. There are scenes of masturbation, anal sex, oral sex, sex between men and sex between women, zoophilia, and so on. These scenes symbolically bridge the world of the living and the world of the dead, suggesting that sexual energy itself played a role in maintaining the cosmic cycle.

In Moche imagery the underworld is far from a place of silence or stillness. The dead appear as sexual active beings who interact among themselves and sometimes with the living. Their sexual acts that happen after death are not meant to produce children but to release the life-giving fluid that nourishes the earth where they dwell following in the steps of the hero Ai Apaec. In this sense, the ancestors were not regarded as inert or gone, but as powerful agents working beneath the surface to fertilize the land and sustain the living world above. At times, especially in underworld scenes, male figures appear skeletal or cadaverous yet remain symbolically potent, emphasizing that death does not diminish generative power.

Moche pottery depicts women both as receptive vessels. They are touched, caressed, and embraced, but also pregnant, giving birth, nursing, and nurturing. Men are shown as emitters and inseminators, projecting virility and vitality.

In some ritual depictions priests and women associated with the archetype of Mother Earth participate in ceremonial acts meant to channel this fertile energy into special vessels known as cancheros, bowls whose openings could symbolically represent the mouth or the womb.

These rituals likely formed part of ceremonies connected to agricultural fertility, reinforcing the Moche belief that life depended on a continuous exchange between the worlds above and below the earth.

A City Reborn

Thirty years ago we landed in Lima late at night and hopped into a taxi whom we gave an address of a hotel in the center recommended in Lonely Planet, in a world before Internet. The taxi swung through dark streets just to be stopped occasionally by patrols who announced in their walkie-talkies that dos extranjeros are coming toward the centro.

After several army filters we arrived in the dark hotel near Plaza de Armas where we found the Presidential Palace surrounded by tanks and armored vehicle with the turrets pointed to the square and the cathedral. It was a very dicey time in Peru. President Fujimori fought the two main left-wing guerillas, Sendero Luminoso and Tupac Amaru and declared victory. His announcement determined us to buy the tickets to come to Peru, a trip we were planning for several years, always with an eye on the news.

Iglesia de San Francisco, Centro, Lima, Peru

But Lima at the time, especially after the long period of instability with bombs detonated on the street and people afraid to leave their houses was unappealing, to put it mildly. The center was looking like after a siege, the streets were dark and the petonal looked like a chaotic bazar rumored to be pretty dangerous.

We visited the cathedral where even Pizzaro’s bones on display turned out to be of another dude, Museo de La Inquisition – now closed – and Iglesia de San Francisco and its catacombs.

After which we took a hair-rising taxi ride from Plaza San Martin to Santiago de Surco to visit Museo de Oro. Nothing seemed appealing, not even Miraflores concealed in garua, the fog-drizzle that veils Lima form time to time. So we boarded the first flight out of Lima to Cuzco to go to Machu Picchu and returned only for long enough to catch the flight back to New York.

While traveling on the Pacific’s Coast of Peru many locals told me that Lima is very beautiful but remembering my past experience I just listened politely. Also, because of my bad memories the plans I made to see some of the Lima’s museums squeezed as few days as possible in the city. And it was a pity, because the Lima I discovered seemed to be another city transplanted here from I don’t know where. Alive, full of restaurants with tasty ceviche, bars with pisco sour, coffee places, helado, trips, tours and lots of parks buzzing with music and life going late in the night, forcing you stay awake.

Miraflores is Lima’s seaside playground, where ocean cliffs meet manicured parks and everyone seems to be jogging, biking, surfing, or paragliding at the same time. It’s polished and cosmopolitan, but not without its quirks: street performers, kite-flying locals, and the occasional seagull swooping down for a snack keep things lively. My phobia for malls – cathedrals of consumerism – was tamed a bit when I walked into Larcomar, the largest mall in South America dug into the cliff, hanging on top of the ocean.

Besides the fancy shops, the restaurants and bars were inviting to just sit there, from sunset till midnight, and admire the ocean’s surf crashing bellow. The Malecón offers postcard-perfect views of the Pacific, inviting you for long walks admiring the ocean and stopping occasionally at a bar or restaurant where the spectacular sunset may make you pause mid-bite.

Barancco’s Fishermen’s Church, Lima, Peru

Barranco is the city’s artsy, carefree district who always has a story to tell. Streets twist like brushstrokes across canvases, balconies are painted in cheerful colors, and murals pop up in the most unexpected corners. Once a quiet seaside retreat for Lima’s wealthy families in the late nineteenth century, it slowly evolved into the city’s most bohemian quarter, where artists, musicians, poets, and night owls feel equally at home.

Colorful republican-era mansions with wooden balconies line the streets, some restored into cafés and boutique hotels, others proudly peeling with character. Murals burst across walls in every direction, turning ordinary alleys into open-air galleries where street art shares space with old churches and sleepy plazas. Walking through Barranco often feels less like sightseeing and more like wandering through someone’s slightly eccentric living room.

At the center of the neighborhood’s charm is the legendary Puente de los Suspiros, the “Bridge of Sighs,” a wooden footbridge wrapped in romance and folklore, unfortunately closed at the moment. According to local legend, if you cross the bridge holding your breath and make a wish before exhaling, it will come true.

Near by, at sunset, bougainvillea spills over old walls, musicians play guitars in the background, and the scent of ocean air drifts up from the cliffs. Cafés, galleries, and music venues hum with creativity, and even the cliffs by the ocean seem to have a poetic vibe.

Miraflores seen from Barancco, Lima, Peru

The Ancients

Caral is remote. The Pan American highway passes through the town of Supe, which seems not to have a main bus line connection to either the south or the north. From there, you head inland into the Supe Valley for roughly 20–25 km on a road that is mostly unpaved, dusty, or occasionally flooded. At one point, you leave the car behind and rely on the services of a tuk-tuk that navigates a path full of potholes filled by water, looking like small pools, formed by streams from the river flowing nearby.

But the entire endeavor is worth all effort when you finally reach the sacred city of Caral – UNESCO heritage – and find yourself alone among dusty mountains, in the middle of the desert, surrounded by mysterious pyramids and sunken plazas. And there is nobody else around as far as you could see.

Situated at about 200 kilometers north of Lima, Caral was built between approximately 3000 and 1800 BCE, making it the oldest known urban center in the Americas, older than Egypt civilization.

The people who developed are known as the Norte Chico (or Caral–Supe) civilization, a complex society that emerged independently without ceramics, metallurgy, or evidence of large-scale warfare. They were organized in a sophisticated theocratic system centered on monumental architecture, including massive platform pyramids built with angular stones extracted from the surrounding mountains. It had sunken circular plazas and residential sectors arranged according to ritual and social hierarchy.

It seems that Caral never conquered their neighbors, but they were keen on religious knowledge, ceremonial power, with emphasis on music, ritual gatherings, and astronomical observation in carefully aligned ceremonial spaces. The Caral society functioned like this for a millennium, as a political, economic, and spiritual hub, setting a foundational model for later Andean civilizations.

Much closer to Lima, the ancient site of Bandurria developed in the same time with Caral and the wider Norte Chico cultural horizon, with its origins dating back to around 3000 BCE. The site was occupied by early coastal communities who combined maritime resources with agriculture, creating a stable economy that allowed the development of monumental architecture built with rounded river boulders.

Its ceremonial core is composed of platform mounds and sunken spaces, arranged in a manner that suggests ritual processions marred by human sacrifices.

They prayed to natural forces, particularly the sea, wetlands, and cycles of fertility. The same as in Caral, authority in Bandurria seems to have rested in ritual knowledge and spiritual mediation, not military domination.

Just outside Lima, the sacred complex of Pachacamac, established around AD 200–600, was for over a millennium one of the most important religious pilgrimage centers in the Andes. During this time, it changed hands from the Lima Culture to the Wari, the Ichma, and eventually the Inca, who absorbed it into their empire.

At its heart rose monumental temples aligned with both cosmic order and political power, most notably the Temple of the Sun, a vast stepped pyramid dominating the landscape and overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the Temple of the Moon, traditionally associated with lunar worship, fertility, and female religious functions, and most important, the Painted Temple, the structure that housed the mysterious Oracle of Pachacamac that was speaking through a sacred wooden idol kept within the temple’s inner sanctum.

Oracle’s sacred wooden idol, Pachacamac, Peru

Because of its reputation, even the Inca treated the oracle with deep respect after conquering the region in the 15th century, allowing its priests to continue their rituals. In its time, the oracle of Pachacamac functioned much like the famous oracle of Delphi in the Mediterranean world: a spiritual court where political leaders, merchants, and pilgrims sought guidance, hoping for a glimpse into the future.

Chilling with a Pisco Sour

After more than a week of bouncing between archaeological sites on roads so dreadful they shook me around like a sack of potatoes, I began to feel I had more than fulfilled my duty as a witness to the violent side of the Moche and Chimu cultures. Their stories of warriors, priests, prisoners, and ritual sacrifices appear with such cheerful directness that even a modern film director might suggest toning things down a little.

So, I decided I have seen enough stones and sand stained in blood for the moment and that it might be time for something slightly less… dramatic.

Reaching the seaside town of Huanchaco – just half an hour from Trujillo – I felt that I could hang out here for a while: several days, a week, or a month, maybe forever…The town’s proud tradition revolves around the delightful Caballitos de Totora, the reed boats fishermen have been riding for centuries like cheerful aquatic hobby horses. They also surfed on them before the modern surfboards were invented. Try that if you dare!

At sunset, the Pacific turns soft shades of gold, fishermen drift lazily back to shore, the surfers try one last wave, and the whole scene gently suggests that not every ancient tradition needs to involve a priest with a knife. So instead of contemplating sacrificial rituals, I did the sensible thing: ordered another pisco sour and watched the sun sink into the ocean, convinced that this was a much more agreeable way to honor the ancients.

Gruesome Violence

Near the small town of Casma, on Peru’s north-central coast, rises one of the most unsettling and enigmatic monuments of ancient America, Cerro Sechín. To get there is not a slam-dunk. With no hotels in the small town and an eight-hour roundtrip by two buses from Trujillo, a trip to Casma requires a bit of stamina.

Dating back to around 1800–900 BC, Cerro Sechín belongs to the earliest wave of monumental architecture in the Andes, before Moche and Chavin. The Sechin archaeological site consists of about 300 carved stone panels, maybe the oldest known monumental sculptures in the central Andes.

The area covers just two hectares out of the 160 hectares that includes Sechin Alto complex and Sechin Bajo with some areas dating back to 3500 BC.

The stone platform temple’s stone walls are carved with scenes of violence and dismemberment; hundreds of relief carvings depicting warriors, priests, and—most strikingly—dismembered human bodies.

Heads are severed, limbs amputated, eyes gouged, tongues and scalps serrated, intestines exposed. Some figures still clutch weapons; others appear defeated, kneeling or already dead with their eyes either gouged or closed, maybe sacrificial victims, fallen enemies, or ritualized in mythic scenes. The anatomically precise images were rendered with clinical attention.

Surrounded by several other sites, Cerro Sechín was part of one of the earliest known urban and ceremonial networks in the Americas. The temple likely functioned as both ceremonial center and political stage.

Standing at Cerro Sechín today, the silence is almost disorienting. Before the intricate gold and silver metallurgy, before ceramics, before elaborate mythologies, there were these stones carved with violence, an early statement that declared that power, belief, and control were the core at the very dawn of Andean history.

Chan Chan

What impresses even before you enter the ruins of Chan Chan is the magnitude of the site. Wherever you look around, there are ruins arrested in sandwaves that rise timidly in the wind. Walls, pyramids, and corridors can only be guessed under the protective yellow layer of dust.

And then you enter the excavated city that represents just a tenth of the archaeological patrimony. A silent city of walls and corridors, slowly eroding under wind and rain, but still unmistakably monumental.

Palacio Nik An, Chan Chan, Trujillo, Peru

The Chimú culture rose to power on the decline of the Moche, inheriting their valleys, irrigation systems, and much of their artistic vocabulary, but reshaping them into something unmistakably imperial.

From around the 10th century until their conquest by the Inca in the late 15th century, the Chimú built the largest coastal state in pre-Hispanic South America from the current border with Ecuador to north of Lima.

If the Moche ruled through ceremony, spectacle and blood, the Chimú ruled through organization. At the center of this system stood Chan Chan, the vast adobe capital near modern Trujillo and the largest mud-brick city ever built.

Covering about 24 square kilometers, Chan Chan was not a single city but a carefully planned urban center whose heart consisted of massive rectangular palace compounds, each surrounded by 12-meter-tall walls and accessed through narrow, controlled entrances. After a ruler died, his palace was sealed and a new one built for the following ruler, turning Chan Chan into a city of ghost stories.

Walking through Chan Chan today feels almost like stepping into a piece of modern architecture, where vast walls are rhythmically decorated with repeating reliefs of fish, pelicans, waves, and fishing nets, creating a calm, almost minimalist sense of order.

In contrast with the Moche, Chimú decoration is rhythmic and restrained, emphasizing repetition over storytelling. The work was done by artisans relocated from conquered regions and housed in specialized neighborhoods, producing textiles, metalwork, and ceramics exclusively for the state.

Chimú venerated the sea and the moon, considered more powerful than the sun. Like Moche they were a lunar civilization. Their rituals were performed within palace compounds often away from public view, with occasionally concealed ceremonies of mass child sacrifices carried out during moments of environmental crisis, such as devastating El Niño events.

Chan Chan’s decline came swiftly after the arrival of the Inca in the late 1400s. Rather than destroying the city outright, the Inca cut off its lifeline, water, rendering the capital uninhabitable and relocating Chimú elites and artisans to Cusco.

Mummified Madonna

Archeological complex El Brujo, Huaca Cao Viejo, Peru

Between 150 BC and about 750 AD, the Pacific Coast was controlled by the Moche culture.They painted their world on ceramics with startling honesty—war, rituals, sex, gods, and daily life, all rendered with humor and precision.

In their theocratic society, the Moche rulers were part priest, part warrior, living embodiments of the gods that had to practice elaborate rituals meant to keep the universe in balance. But it was always assumed that the rulers would have been men of power.

Madonna de Cao mold for international exhibitions, Peru

The discovery of the Lady of Cao quietly rewrote the rules. Tattooed with snakes, spiders, and mythic creatures – powerful symbols in Moche cosmology associated with fertility, rain, sacrifice, and the underworld – and buried with symbols of authority, she was a ruler, possibly a priestess, and certainly a figure of command.

Madonna de Cao tomb, Huaca Cao Viejo, Peru

She lived at the peak of the Moche civilization, around the 4th century AD, and her tomb was discovered at Huaca Cao Viejo near Trujillo, a ceremonial pyramid long known for its vivid murals in the archaeological complex of El Brujo in 2005.

Ai Apaec, the principal god of the Moche culture

She was named Madonna de Cao after a nearby village. Inside, the naturally mummified body was wrapped in layers of fine textiles and accompanied by an extraordinary assemblage of regalia: ceremonial clubs, spear-throwers, nose ornaments, crowns, and insignia.

Not far from Huaca Cao Viejo are located two pyramids, Huaca de la Luna and Huaca del Sol, that form the monumental heart of the Moche culture, both built towards the end of the Moche civilization, around the 8^th century

Huaca de la Luna was the ritual heart; its 27-meter-high walls layered with vividly painted deities and scenes of sacrifice, renewed again and again as generations rebuilt over the old layers of the pyramid.

Excavations have revealed plazas stained with blood and human remains bearing clear signs of ritual execution, confirming scenes long depicted on Moche ceramics as ceremonies meant to feed the gods, ensure rainfall, and maintain balance in a fragile desert environment.

Only the priests, their families, and several officiants were allowed to enter the temple of the Moon together with the prisoners and some lamas who were to be sacrificed inside.

At the center of Moche belief stood a powerful and unsettling deity often called Ai Apaec, the principal god of the Moche culture. Ai Apaec was both creator and destroyer, a god who demanded blood to keep the world in balance. Human sacrifice was not an act of terror but a sacred exchange, feeding the deity so he would sustain the fragile desert world the Moche depended on.

Huaca del Sol, not excavated yet, was once the largest adobe structure in the Americas. It was the administrative engine—part palace, part warehouse, part symbol of power, and was the seat of secular authority.

Shamans

Chiclayo is a modern city. It was not laid out by the Spaniards, so there is no Plaza de Armas at its center. The yellow cathedral, under a major clean-up for a possible visit of Pope Leo, overlooks the city’s main square, full of people who hang out in the shade. Wide boulevards cut through the city, while the cross streets are lined with narrow sidewalks that leave pedestrians pinned against the walls when the rains flood the roadways.

Travelers who come don’t look for an inexistent colonial heart, but for traces of the Moche culture spread in Sipan, Sican, and Tecume. But in a corner of Mercado Modelo, Chiclayo hides something entirely different. Here, the brujos and their remedios still hold court.

Most of the herbal remedios are sold by women who know a plant for each sickness, remedies used for millennia by the locals to cure their illnesses. Besides them are the spiritual remedios known only by the shamans, known here as curanderos.

In the north of Peru, the rituals of the curanderos unfold in a space where healing, protection, and negotiation with unseen forces blend seamlessly. Central to these ceremonies are the chonta swords, dark wooden blades revered not as weapons but as protection shields.

They are planted upright or crossed to form an energetic barrier, warding off harmful spirits and anchoring the ritual space. Each sword carries lineage and memory, passed down through generations, absorbing prayers, intentions, and the weight of countless ceremonies.

Around them, the mesa is arranged with other objects: baby llama fetuses placed in the foundation of a new home, skulls, carved stones, shells, and ancient talismans. These are not symbols of darkness, but of balance and protection.

At the heart of the ritual is the San Pedro cactus, a sacred plant used for millennia. Consumed in carefully guided ceremonies, it opens vision and clarity, allowing the curandero to diagnose spiritual ailments, retrieve lost energy, and realign the patient with the natural and ancestral world. The ritual is not about escape, but about repair—restoring harmony between the body, the land, and the forces that quietly shape daily life. In Mexico, it is known as peyote, the famous plant used by Don Juan in Carlos Castaneda’s stories. But the name of San Pedro, who has the keys to open the heavens, seems more appropriate.

The curandero’s corner is present in all South American markets where tradition overshadows modernity. We encountered it in Guayaquil as well as in La Paz, which is called, inspiringly, Mercado de la Brujas. And if you feel that you need a spiritual cleansing, you can call a curandero by WhatsApp.

Burials and decapitations

The tombs of the Lords of Sipán, discovered in 1987 at Sipán, were not symbolic or legendary burials, but the graves of real rulers, interred with dazzling gold and silver regalia, elaborate headdresses, ceremonial weapons, and finely crafted ornaments.

The tombs were deep, but not for theft concerns; the entire area was sacred in their time. The pyramids built by the Moche culture consisted of layer upon layer of adobe bricks; when a ruler died, a new layer was added on top, embracing the old one and adding flat plazas for rituals or administration. In generations it eventually formed a stepped pyramid with a flat summit.

Today’s three eroded hills were once three pyramids: one administrative, one ritual with a single temple at the top, and a smaller funerary pyramid where the tombs were found.

El Viejo Lord of Sipan tomb, Sipan, Peru

The Lords of Sipán ruled during the height of the Moche culture, roughly AD 250–450.

The imagery on the rulers’ attire mirrors scenes painted on Moche ceramics, confirming that figures once thought mythical were living elites who embodied divine authority.

This was a theocratic system in which power was both political and religious, grounded in ritual, warfare, and control of water and land along Peru’s arid north coast.

The burials themselves were carefully staged displays of power—gold, silver, turquoise, feathered headdresses, and nose ornaments arranged with deliberate precision.

In the main tomb of the Lord of Sipán, eight individuals were found: three young women, a high-ranking guard, a standard-bearer, a child, a man with amputated feet, and a dog believed to guide souls in the afterlife.

Every placement followed a strict cosmological order, organizing the logistics of the afterlife so the lord could continue to work for the community beyond death.

The pyramids of Túcume rise from the desert like frozen waves, forming one of the largest monumental complexes in ancient Peru. Dominated by the sacred hill Cerro La Raya, Túcume was a landscape of power where its truncated pyramids were not tombs but ceremonial and administrative centers, each associated with ritual platforms, plazas, and elite residences. Túcume became the third capital of the Lords of the Sicán culture. Climate instability, especially the disruptive cycles of El Niño and La Niña, forced the Sicán to move their capital several times, with Túcume as the final stop. Here, no fewer than 26 adobe pyramids still rise from the desert, forming a vast ceremonial landscape anchored to a sacred hill.

The Lords of Sicán belonged to the later Sicán culture, ruling approximately AD 900–1100. This was a different kingdom, ruled by elites with very different ideas about life, death, and authority. Sicán rulers were buried in a strikingly unusual way: upside down, and often decapitated. Far from accidental, this was deliberate ritual symbolism. In Sicán cosmology, death meant reversal—a descent into an inverted underworld where regeneration and rebirth began.

The head, believed to hold power and identity, was sometimes placed beside the body or replaced with a mask to release and redirect that force. Combined with the head-down burial, this ritual “disassembly” transformed the ruler from a living authority into an ancestor linked to fertility, the underworld, and cosmic renewal.

The Sicán didn’t simply bury their leaders—they carefully reconfigured them for their next role, ensuring they continued to serve the community long after death.

Carvings

Just outside Cajamarca, in Cumbemayo, at an altitude of over 3500 meters the landscape suddenly fractures into wind-sculpted rock formations that resemble frozen giants, praying monks, abstract sculptures, or a stone army caught mid-thought.

Winding through them is the famous pre-Inca aqueduct, precisely carved into volcanic rock, quietly guiding water towards the city.

It was carved directly by hand into volcanic rock by the ancient engineers of the Cajamarca culture in the first millennium BC.

This eight-kilometer rock-cut aqueduct channels the water with surprising precision across open plateaus, with ninety degrees turns to slow and steady the flow.

The Ventanillasde Otuzco are also attributed to the Cajamarca culture, a pre-Inca civilization that flourished in the northern Peruvian highlands roughly between 200 BCE and 800 CE. More than three hundreds of small, neatly carved niches hollowed into a sheer rock face look at first like windows, then like doors to another world, a quiet census of the dead. It is a funerary site for the elite where each niche likely held a wrapped mummy along with some grave goods intended to accompany the dead into the afterlife. They were built elevated to be protected from floods and animals but also to place the deceased closer to the sky and the ancestral forces

Carnival

Too much cold, snow, and ice on the ground that may melt in May made me hop on three flights that landed me in Cajamarca, the capital of the northern Incas ruled by the unfortunate and egotistical Atahualpa. Each time I read the story of the Inca empire’s demise, I cannot wrap my head around it. How could a band of ragheads conquer a continental empire in one day?

And if you look at history, it always comes to the same: a strongly divided society, always in conflict with its neighbors, looking to dominate and not to collaborate. And always, led to the abyss by an ego-driven ruler who thinks that he is the best humanity ever created. Both American continents went this way. And it seems that we never learned anything.

But I came here less for the Inca’s misfortunes that left only few faint traces, and I landed in the last day of the Carnival of Cajamarca, less a religious festival and more a cheerful conspiracy against uptightness.

For several days, the city of Cajamarca abandoned dignity altogether: people sing in squares, dance with impressive enthusiasm rather than skill, transforming streets into dance floors and spray each other with water, paint, talcum powder, while order is replaced by exhilarating joy.

At the center of it all is Rei Momo, the round, smiling king of excess, laziness, and good humor. He presides over the chaos like a benevolent ruler who encourages too much food, too much drink, far too much laughter and …everything else.

Water-filled ballons ready to be deployed, Carnaval de Cajamarca, Peru

On Ash Wednesday, the party reaches its grand finale: Rei Momo is “judged” for all the sins of Carnival and is ceremoniously cremated. A cortege of masks and people follows Rei Momo’s hearse through Cartagena, amid joyful music from a following band in a comedic funeral that ends in Banos de Inca.

Rei Momo’s Cremation in Banos de Inca, Carnaval de Cajamarca, Peru

There, the coffin is placed in front of a stage filled with city and carnival officials, and amid mock crying, exaggerated speeches, loud music, and under excessive water-filled balloon fights, Rei Momo’s burning happens, marking the official end of chaos and the return to normal life. At least until next year, when Rei Momo will inevitably rise from the dead, ready to reign once more.

Frozen Fire

Dreaming of Venice in a freezing Brooklyn

“Monet in Venice” at the Brooklyn Museum

After the storm

After the storm in Central Park.

After the storm in the City.

Dreamworld

Everything began in Paris in 1924, when André Breton published his Manifesto of Surrealism and invited the world to loosen its tie and let imagination take the lead. The movement championed dreams over dry logic, believing that true freedom lives in the unconscious and in the playful leaps of the mind.

Inspired by Freud, Surrealists experimented with automatic writing and free association, hoping to spark nothing less than a joyful revolution of consciousness.

Poets were soon joined by visual artists, who brought these ideas to life through bold and often surprising works in painting, sculpture, photography, film, and design.

In Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 hosted by Philadelphia Museum of Art, we follow these trailblazers from the 1920s through the 1950s as they turn art into a doorway to inner worlds and imaginative escape.

Misty Mountains

“În Milford Sound te simți insignifiant înconjurat de vârfurile din jur care par să se prăbușească peste barcazul în care te afli, o coajă de nucă privit prin comparație. Cerul însorit s-a acoperit de nori în apropierea Mării Tasman, cea mai perfidă mare din lume, blestemul căpitanilor, mulți lăsându-și oasele pe fundul ei. Pe țărm, focile zac pe stânci în bătaia vântului puternic care mișcă coronamentul copacilor agățați precar de stâncile abrupte ca un pieptene care se mișcă prin părul unui gigant al munților, în timp ce cascadele încep să curgă în sus forțate de același vânt puternic…”

Cititi articolul aici

Divine

Over some three thousand years of recorded history—and probably a good stretch of mythic time before anyone bothered to write things down—Egyptian priests had both the leisure and the enthusiasm to populate the heavens with an impressively crowded divine cast.

With more than 1,500 gods and countless overlapping forms, titles, and animal-headed variations, it’s hard not to imagine a kind of theological creativity marathon: every crown, gesture, feather, or sacred emblem becoming an excuse to define a new personality and a new specialty.

One god for kingship, another for healing, one for the flood, another for the afterlife, plus several who could do all of the above depending on the day and the temple.

Thanks to this divine abundance, priests, artists, and worshippers were never short of heavenly figures to honor, depict, debate, and negotiate with, to keep ritual calendars full and imaginations busy for centuries.

The “Divine Egypt” exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York assembles nearly 250 artworks and artifacts—many generously lent by major institutions—to explore how the most significant deities of Egypt’s vast pantheon were visually represented.

Watercolors

In his prophetic words, “You will see, in the future I will live by my watercolors,” American artist Winslow Homer (1836–1910) captured the essence of his artistic legacy.

Through his relentless spirit of experimentation, Homer transformed the medium of watercolor, creating luminous views that transport viewers to the rugged Maine coast, the Adirondack Mountains, seaside England, sun-drenched Caribbean waters, and beyond.

“Of Light and Air” is a remarkable exhibition at the MFA, Boston Museum of Fine Arts that houses the largest collection of Homer’s watercolors in the world, though they have not been displayed together in nearly half a century.

With material ranging from Homer’s childhood drawings all the way to his final canvas, the exhibition follows the major chapters in Homer’s career and emphasizing the ecological, artistic, social, and economic environments that shaped his enduring work in watercolor, ultimately fulfilling his prediction that watercolors would define his artistic future.

Happy Holidays!

Rain

Birthplace

Krishna Janmabhoomi Temple, Mathura, India

Mathura is revered as the birthplace of Krishna, and its spiritual centerpiece is the Krishna Janmabhoomi Temple. The temple complex is vast and heavily secured, crowned by a massive gate featuring Krishna driving his chariot, a vivid echo of Arjuna receiving guidance in the Bhagavad Gita. Inside, a labyrinth of temples and buildings unfolds, some active with priests performing rituals, others quietly closed, yet still attracting countless selfies from visitors surrounded by troops of monkeys roaming everywhere.

Right in front of the temple entrance, Pondra Kund is ruled by a mischievous troop of monkeys. They frolic along its edges, leaping and chattering while food vendors toss bananas toward them that they grab with remarkable speed and coordination, scampering off to the rooftops.

Not far away, in the heart of Krishna’s playground known locally as Braj, lies Barsana, Radha’s birthplace, perched atop twin hills that rise above a town lost in the haze below. Smaller and more intimate than Vrindavan, Barsana has about a dozen major temples, each one echoing with the divine drama that extends to every corner of the town.

If Krishna takes the spotlight, Radha, his consort, ensures that she and her entire family, receives its due share of devotion. In fact, there is even a temple dedicated to her mother, Kirti Mandir, a reminder that in Braj’s sacred pantheon, no divine relative is left uncelebrated.

And, as in Vrindavan and Mathura, monkeys, pilgrims, priests, fire, incense, music, and riverlight blend into a sensory whirlwind that can easily overwhelm anybody.

Aarti on Vishram Ghat, Yamuna River, Mathura, India

The Aarti on the ghats of the Yamuna in Mathura is a magical festival that unfolds every evening. As the sun sets, priests appear carrying towering lamps, lifting them skyward while chanting “Jai Shri Krishna!” The smoke mingles with the warm glow of hundreds of candles – diyas – drifting on the river, and suddenly the entire ghat is alive with light, sound, and devotion.

The crowd adds its own energy, swaying, clapping, and singing along, while the monkeys, blessed attendees of countless Aartis, never miss a chance to join in, darting between legs with confidence, people and animals engulfed by an air that becomes thick with the scent of incense, marigolds, and burning ghee.

By the end, the combination of fire, chant, and devotion strikes all at once, and for a fleeting moment, you feel woven into the ritual itself, touched by a blessing from the very gods who once frolicked across the plains of Braj.

Templed Out

Radha Raman Temple, Vrindavan, India

After three weeks surrounded by castles that looked as if they had fallen from the sky, naked monks, terrifying dancing masks, bardo beasts, demons crouching in every corner waiting to be pacified, and flying tigresses ferrying Padmasambhava—the Tibetan superman—to mountaintops, all of it somehow radiating a deep, Buddha-sourced tranquility, I began to suspect I had overdosed on serenity. Before heading home, I needed a jolt of adrenaline from an entirely different pantheon—a kind of spiritual palate cleanser that would scrub away the Zen and replace it with something closer to “fight-or-flight.”

Sri Ranganath Ji Temple, Vrindavan, India

So I flew from Siliguri to Delhi, got into a car, and three hours later stepped straight into the paroxysm of myth and the kind of classical religious fervor you simply won’t find anywhere else.

Banke Bihari Temple, Vrindavan, India

Vrindavan alone boasts around 5,000 temples. It is, by any reasonable (or unreasonable) measure, the most “templed” town on earth. With a resident population of roughly 60,000, every hundred people or so can have their own temple—a ratio so absurdly devotional that you cannot wrap your mind around it. And if you want to switch from tranquility to pure, joyous madness, nothing beats being tossed straight into a screaming, surging darshan queue.

Banke Bihari Temple, Vrindavan, India

The line to enter Banke Bihari Temple twisted through the streets like a living creature—pushing, shoving, laughing, chanting—past stalls selling offerings for the goddess and trays piled with marigolds, sweets, and incense. Banke Bihari is one of Vrindavan’s most beloved deities, a form that combines Krishna and his consort, Radha, into one charming presence.

ISKCON (Krishna Balaram) Temple, Vrindavan, India

But if you truly want to know what a religious nightclub might look like—and what sort of music it would play—you only need to attend the evening kirtan at the ISKCON temple dedicated to Krishna. This is where the Hare Krishna devotees deliver a performance that could outshine many DJs on a global tour.

Prem Mandir Temple, Vrindavan, India

The mantra—Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare—loops with the hypnotic precision of a masterfully mixed track. The rhythm builds slowly, then rises, and finally erupts into a pure, ecstatic crescendo, causing the devotees to spin, clap, sway, and dance with the kind of abandon, without any intoxicants. It’s utterly fascinating to watch the spiritual rave where the divine is the DJ.

Prem Mandir Temple, Vrindavan, India

And if the kirtan’s ecstatic energy becomes too much, especially for someone who has just arrived from the land of Buddha, chanting Om all day, your escape into the night is the manicured Prem Mandir, a temple so polished and colorfully illuminated that it feels almost unreal.

Aarti on Keshi Ghat by Yamuna River, Vrindavan, India

For a final splash of color at the end of the day, nothing rivals the aarti on the Keshi ghat of the Yamuna. As priests lift flaming lamps in sweeping arcs, the river glows gold, and candles flow down the river like whispered blessings, and for a moment, the whole world seems to pause. And by miracle, your daily karma got cleansed, and for a second or so, you also can be a god.

Land of Dorje

Sunrise on Tiger Hill, Darjeeling, India

Catching the sunrise from Tiger Hill is almost a ritual in Darjeeling. The wake-up call comes brutally early—around 4:00 a.m.—and stepping out into the mountain cold feels like a small act of bravery. What was once a quiet pre-dawn pilgrimage, made on foot through the dark while the town still slept, has been transformed by the new road into a motorized procession, an early-morning caravan that seems to deliver every tourist in Darjeeling to the summit at the same time.

The Himalayan gods blessed us with a perfectly clear sky. First, a pale glow lifted behind the distant ridges, brushing the horizon with silver. Soon after, Kangchenjunga ignited in shades of rose and gold, the whole massif seeming to levitate above the darker foothills. Far to the left, even Mount Everest appeared right behind Ama Dablam, tiny and distant on the Nepal–Tibet border, yet unmistakably the ruler of the serrated skyline it surveyed.

Then the sun rises fully, and the world slips back into what passes for ordinary, if “ordinary” can be called the stupendously beautiful peaks glittering in the blazing sun, leaving behind the memory of that brief Himalayan dawn, which lingers long after the crowds have dispersed.

Diesel locomotive on the narrow-gauge railway at Batasia Loop. Darjeeling, India

Long before Darjeeling, “The Land of the Thunderbolt,” became the “Queen of the Hills”, its ridges were home to the Lepchas, who regarded the misty forests as sacred. Over the centuries, the land shifted between the Chogyals of Sikkim and the Gorkha rulers of Nepal, until the British arrived in the early 19th century, defeating the Gorkhas and returning the territory to Sikkim. But in 1835, the Sikkimese ruler ceded the Darjeeling ridge, a remote, forested hilltop at the time, to the British, who later incorporated it into West Bengal, where it remains today.

Narrow-gauge railway steam train, Darjeeling, India

The British developed Darjeeling into a hill station to escape the heat and malaria of the plains, laying out bungalows, schools, and sanatoriums. In the 1840s, experimental tea plantations showed that the region’s climate was perfect for producing a light, aromatic leaf. To work the estates, the British encouraged Nepali migrants to settle, planting the foundations of today’s Gorkha-majority culture. Soon, the hillsides were draped in emerald terraces, and Darjeeling tea became world-famous.

Narrow-gauge steam locomotive, Darjeeling, India

However, moving tea and other goods up the steep mountains was a serious logistical challenge. To solve it, a British engineer designed and built the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway between 1879 and 1881. This narrow-gauge marvel climbs roughly 88 kilometers from the sweltering plains to the cool heights of Darjeeling, gaining over 2,000 meters in altitude along the way.

Gorkha War Memorial at Batasia Loop, Darjeeling, India

The most famous section of this UNESCO World Heritage treasure is the Batasia Loop, where the train winds around a manicured garden and war memorial while negotiating a steep gradient. It stands as a living symbol of colonial ingenuity and Himalayan charm.

Samten Choeling, Ghoom, Darjeeling, India

Perched in Ghoom, at the terminus of the “Toy Train” ride, Samten Choeling Monastery is one of the oldest Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in the region, dating back to the early 19th century. It is the first Gelugpa (Yellow Hat) monastery I have come across in both Bhutan and Sikkim. Stepping inside, you are immediately struck by the collection of ancient scriptures, statues, and ritual objects surrounding the statues of Maitreya Buddha.

True to Gelug tradition, the wrathful deities are not represented on the murals, tucked away, separated from the main hall. Je Tsongkhapa’s statue is on the right side of the central statue, yet there is no portrait of the Dalai Lama. Outside, the distant whistle of the “Toy Train” reminds you that, despite its history, the monastery exists in the living pulse of Darjeeling.

Peace Pagoda is the first built in India, Darjeeling, India

Under Kangchenjunga

If you open the Pelling’s hotel window at dawn, this is what you’ll see. The mountain is there, seemingly just behind one or two hills, way too close but also so far away. As the capital of West Sikkim, Pelling faces directly toward Kanchenjunga, Sikkim’s guardian deity and the world’s third-highest mountain, which feels like a silent, snow-crowned protector watching over the valley. The morning’s blush pink and gold will soon become a cold, silver in the bright daylight, just to retire like an actor behind a curtain after dusk.

Pelling moves at a mellow pace, its pockets of buildings spread around the winding road, occasionally lined up by prayer flags, with streets with small cafés, where travelers meet to exchange stories. On the way, waterfalls plunge down the hillsides, forests rise in layered greens, and suspension bridges thread over rushing streams, as another set of offers to the wanderers. But no matter where you go, above it all, Kanchenjunga remains the true monarch of the region, its presence a reminder of the humility one naturally feels under the gaze of the Himalayas’ majestic sentinels.

The Chenrezig Statue above Pelling is impossible to miss. Rising 137 feet into the sky, the gleaming white figure of Chenrezig/Avalokinteshvara (the Bodhisattva of Compassion) stands with a gentle presence, gazing across the valleys toward Kanchenjunga as if blessings the mountain in the crisp Himalayan air that seems to sharpen its contours.

At its base, a beautifully designed complex unfolds, prayer wheels, manicured gardens wrapped in monks’ chants and a glass Skywalk, suspended boldly over the hillside. You walk on it peeking down at the forest bellow, while ahead lies an uninterrupted panorama of the snow-capped peaks offering an unexpected serenity.

From the glass bridge you may walk up towards the statue spinning the long row of prayer wheels, humming the deity’s mantra till you reach the top where the statue invites you inside. Wrapped in murals of elated deities that will guide your way towards compassion, each floor will bring you to a higher consciousness and to a spectacular panorama of the entire valley, overlorded by Kanchenjunga.

A short walk from the majestic statue lies Sangacholing Monastery, one of the oldest in the region, founded in the 17th century. Reaching it once meant a long, breath-stealing climb along a prayer-flag-lined trail, a true pilgrimage route. Today, both a paved road and a “ropeway,” as cable cars are charmingly called here, make the ascent far gentler. Yet Sangacholing remains a quiet, contemplative companion to the great Chenrezig statue, its courtyard rarely crowded despite offering one of the finest mountain panoramas in Sikkim.

Inside, tantric deities locked in centuries-old murals adorn the walls, fierce protectors with fanged smiles stand beside serenely radiant Buddhas: Mahākāla, with his crown of skulls, or Hayagriva, with the neighing horse-head of divine wrath. Besides, the omnipresent Guru Rinpoche, Chenrezig, Green Tara, and Vajrapani, the thunder-wielding guardian of the teachings.

Founded also in the 17th century, Pemayangtse Monastery, the crown jewel, belongs to the Nyingma tradition and was once reserved for “pure monks,” giving it a reputation for quiet discipline and deep scholarship. It was founded in 1705 by one of the three great lamas who consecrated the first Chogyal (king) of Sikkim in the 17th century. It became the spiritual custodian of the Sikkimese monarchy, hosting ceremonies connected to the coronation and protection of the kingdom. During festivals, Pemayangtse’s monks perform dramatic masked dances meant to purify the land and invoke protective deities.

Its greatest treasure is the Sangtok Palri, a fantastical, multi-tiered wooden sculpture created by a single monk over the course of several decades. It’s a miniature universe of deities, guardians, and mythical realms, so intricate that you could keep staring at it and still notice new details.

Pemayangtse served historically as a monastic guardian, overseeing the spiritual well-being of the royal seat. It is therefore no surprise that the ruins of Rabdentse Royal Palace, the second capital of Sikkim, lie just below the hilltop.

The ruins represent what was left by time from the second capital of the Kingdom of Sikkim. Established in the 17th century, Rabdentse was a thriving seat of power before it was abandoned in the late 18th century, following invasions by the Gorkhas that forced the court to relocate to Tumlong in the north of the country, before settling in the current Gangtok. The setting is spectacular, with the ruins framed by the panoramic views of the surrounding mountains providing a serene contrast to the impermanence of human ambition.

Khecheopalri Lake, Pelling, Sikkim, India

If you have a wish that is a must, you should come to Khecheopalri Lake, often called the “Wish-fulfilling Lake.” It lies tucked among dense forests and rolling hills, exuding a serene, almost otherworldly charm. Steeped in legend, it is considered sacred to both Buddhists and Hindus. According to Buddhist lore, the lake is the abode of Khecheopalri, a protector goddess, and is believed to fulfill the wishes of those who approach it with a pure heart. Local stories tell that the lake’s surface never allows leaves to float for long, as if unseen forces maintain its pristine reflection.

Guru Padmasambava’s meditation cave by Khecheopalri Lake, Pelling, Sikkim, India

Hindu legends also hold the lake as sacred, linking it to tales of gods and spirits who bless those who come in devotion. Pilgrims and visitors walk its perimeter in quiet reverence, spinning prayer wheels, offering flowers, or simply sitting by the banks, soaking in the calm that seems to settle over both mind and water.

Tea and Devotion

In Namchi, the easy-paced capital of South Sikkim, the mountains rise around the town like the walls of a natural amphitheater, while clouds drift so close you feel you could lean forward and nudge them aside. Its name means “Sky High,” and on a clear day it seems that every horizon stretches upward into blue. Namchi carries the gentle assurance of a hill town that knows travelers will eventually come and wander up its slopes in search of wide views, quiet temples, and a slower heartbeat.

At its heart rise two hills, Samdruptse and Siddheshwar, each crowned with its own monumental presence: Samdruptse with its towering golden statue of Guru Padmasambhava, and Siddheshwar with Lord Shiva presiding over the sprawling Char Dham pilgrimage complex.

Namchi’s tea gardens unfurl into the distance beneath prayer flags that crackle in the breeze and the soft chants drifting from small hilltop monasteries, all touched by a quiet, elevated spirituality. These estates soften the rugged terrain with lush, emerald terraces that seem to flow down the slopes like green silk. Sikkim’s tea gardens are often small, family-run affairs, woven gently into the surrounding forests and hillsides rather than imposed upon them. As you scramble up the paths between neatly pruned bushes, you catch the faint, sweet scent of new leaves and the gentle rustle of wind through the rows that seems almost musical.

Many of these gardens produce organic and biodynamic teas, the state being India’s first fully organic tea producer. Workers in bright scarves and shawls move gracefully through the rows, plucking tender leaves by hand; their steady, rhythmic motions echo centuries-old traditions and embody a delicate balance between nature, labor, and culture. All of it unfolds against a cinematic backdrop of sweeping mountains that seem to frame every gesture in soft, dramatic light.

If you are a devotee of Lord Shiva and don’t feel like traveling all across India to worship Him, Char Dham in Namchi is your best shortcut. Perched on Solophok Hill, it was conceived as a pilgrimage complex where devotees can experience the spiritual essence of India’s four most sacred Hindu shrines—Badrinath, Dwarka, Jagannath, and Rameswaram—without undertaking the long, demanding journeys to the far corners of the subcontinent. Each shrine is recreated at full architectural scale with remarkable attention to detail: from the towering stone façades and intricately carved doorways to sanctums that glow softly with lamplight.

At the heart of the complex rises an enormous, serene statue of Lord Shiva, visible from miles away and radiating a quiet, commanding presence. Surrounding it are 12 replicas of the Jyotirlingas, India’s holiest Shiva temples, each dedicated to a different manifestation of the deity. Together with the four Dham shrines mentioned above, they form a complete spiritual circuit encompassing the most sacred sites associated with Lord Shiva. Pilgrims hum mantras as they move from temple to temple, pausing to pour water over the lingams or offer prayers to the various manifestations, creating a rhythm of devotion that feels timeless.

But at Char Dham, you’ll also see monks chatting with selfie-takers, families picnicking between pilgrimage stops, and countless visitors capturing Instagram shots, all while clouds drift lazily around, as if they too want a selfie with the majestic statue. It’s a place where the sacred meets a touch of Bollywood, and where even casual visitors can’t help but feel quietly elevated by the sheer scale and devotion woven into the complex.

Tsomgo

In Sikkim, there is no clear boundary between landscape and religion. Mountains are are deities, lakes are are oracles while monasteries are living mandalas carved into the land. Around Gangtok, nature and Buddhism exist in such perfect harmony that it becomes impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins.

The winding road to Tsomgo Lake, Gangtok, Sikkim, India

Prayer flags planted along the road carry in the wind mantras across the valley, especially the great chant: Om Mani Padme Hum, the mantra of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion.

At 14500 feet Tsomgo Lake and the border with Tibet, China

High above the capital lies Tsomgo Lake, a sacred glacial mirror framed by ice, stone, and sky and wrapped in prayer flags. In Buddhist belief, places like Tsomgo are threshold zones, passages between realms.

The name itself means “Source of Water” in the local Lepcha language, but the lake is believed to be far more than a source. It is an eye of the mountain, capable of revealing visions to monks who meditate beside it. Traditionally, lamas interpreted the color and surface of the lake to foretell the future because the lake’s color changes with the seasons: a translucent white when frozen in winter, deep blue in the monsoon, or an unusually dark that warns of difficult times ahead. Sitting at Tsomgo feels like meditating inside the mind of the Himalayas themselves.

Kangchenjunga, the third highest peak in the world 8586 meters, Tsomgo Lake, Sikkim, India

Dominating all of Sikkim like a watchful deity is Kanchenjunga, the third-highest mountain on Earth. Its name means “The Five Treasures of the Snow,” referring to its five great peaks, believed in local Buddhist belief to guard five sacred treasures: gold, silver, grain, holy books, and weapons translated into Buddhism symbolism as body, speech, mind, virtue, and enlightened wisdom. Seen from a specific point that I personally could not visualize, the Kanchenjunga range resembles a sleeping Buddha.

To the people of Sikkim, Kanchenjunga is a protective deity, a Dzo-nga, a spirit-bound peak that guards the land and, because of that, its top cannot be climbed but only worshipped not to disturb the gods dwelling on the summit. The climbers who still attempt to climb the mountain traditionally stop just short of the top, out of respect. In Buddhist cosmology, Kanchenjunga stands as one version of Mount Meru, the sacred axis of the universe. When clouds wrap around its peaks, locals say the mountain is “in meditation.”

The Ex-kingdom

Clustered houses near Enchey Monastery, Gangtok, Sikkim, India

I doubt there is a more jarring border crossing on earth than the few unceremonious steps from Phuentsholing into West Bengal. One moment, you are in Bhutan, a kingdom of order, discipline, prayer flags, and streets that seem to obey all traffic rules. The next, that careful symmetry dissolves into the great, magnificent mayhem of an Indian border town: horns arguing in several dialects, vendors calling out over piles of fruit, incense, plastics and sweets, diesel fumes tangled with chili and jasmine, and shops offering absolutely everything imagined. And somehow you climb into a car, heading north toward Sikkim, a former Himalayan kingdom that quietly lost its crown and became Indian in 1975. And somewhere along that winding road, the feeling returns that you are crossing yet another invisible border between worlds.

Rumtek Monastery, Gangtok, Sikkim, India

In 1999, at only fourteen years old, Karmapa, the head of the Kagyu Buddhist school left the Tibetan Tsurpu monastery in the dead of winter and secretly fled Tibet dressed as a pilgrim slipping past Chinese patrols. Shortly after, he met the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, a meeting thick with symbolism, two lineages of Tibetan Buddhism united in exile. The Dalai Lama publicly welcomed him, recognizing him as a spiritual heir of one of Tibet’s oldest reincarnate lines.

In exile, the Karmapa established himself at Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim, and later founded the Dharmachakra Centre, a growing international hub for study, meditation, and ecological action. The portraits of the leaders of Nyingma, Gelug and Kagyu school are lined up side by side in one of the chapels in a remarkable display of unity. But even here, the story is not free of controversy. As with many reincarnate lineages, the recognition of the 17th Karmapa was disputed, and a second claimant, supported by a powerful group of senior monks, was enthroned as an alternative incarnation. This unexpected split fractured the Karma Kagyu school into two rival camps, each convinced it was safeguarding the true continuity of an ancient lineage. The result is a striking paradox: both 17th Karmapas now live in India, yet neither currently resides at Rumtek Monastery, the historic seat of the lineage.

Do Drul Chorten and Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, Gangtok, Sikkim, India

Do Drul Chorten, one of Sikkim’s most revered stupas, was constructed in 1945 under the guidance of a great Rinpoche and stands as a luminous emblem of devotion and spiritual continuity. Encircling it are 108 prayer wheels, each spun with meditative reverence by the locals and pilgrims alike sending the wheel’s mantras whirling into the air.

Just a stone’s throw away, the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology offers a quieter, contemplative experience right in the heart of Gangtok, Sikkim’s capital. Not a conventional museum, it is mainly a repository of Himalayan artifacts, housing rare manuscripts, thangkas, ritual objects, and intricately carved statues.

Ancient sutras in the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology, Gangtok, Sikkim, India

Walking through its galleries and its impressive ancient sutra library, one senses that the institute carefully tends the living flame of culture, ensuring that the delicate threads will not get lost in the rush of modernity.

The chapel of the Royal Palace, Gangtok, Sikkim, India

Perched on a gentle hill above Gangtok, the former royal palace complex —now closed to visitors—exudes an air of quiet dignity. Nearby, its temple links the city’s royal history with its enduring spiritual traditions.

Enchey Monastery, Gangtok, Sikkim, India

Closer to the heart of the city sits Enchey Monastery with its more than 200 years of history. It was built on a land blessed by a tantric master said to have flown here like a bird. Following the Nyingma order, the oldest school of Tibetan Buddhism, Enchey is known for its vibrant annual cham dances, where masked monks whirl and stomp the courtyard of the monastery.

Mahakala, Enchey Monastery, Gangtok, Sikkim, India

The monastery is also home to a striking Mahakala shrine, honoring the fierce protector deity whose wrath is said to guard the Dharma and the faithful.

Main Hall in Enchey Monastery, Gangtok, Sikkim, India

Its main Buddha pavilion is a serene space where Sakyamuni’s golden statue is surrounded by intricate murals radiating quiet majesty and devotion.

The Sky Monastery

Perched like a bird’s nest on a sheer cliff face above the Paro Valley, Taktsang Lhakhang, better known as Bhutan’s Tiger’s Nest Monastery, is less a collection of buildings than a miracle in stone. According to legend, it was here in the 8th century that Guru Rinpoche, the saint who brought Buddhism to Bhutan, flew in on the back of a tigress and meditated in a cave for three years, three months, three weeks, three days, and three hours. And probably three more minutes and three seconds, but this is not specified in the legend.

On the Tiger’s Nest Monastery hike, Bhutan

The monks who live and practice here follow a life shaped by silence, ritual, and altitude. Supplies must be carried up steep paths, and the world below—cars, phones, schedules—belongs to another realm. Here, time is measured instead by the ringing of bells for the common prayers, the flicker of butter lamps, and the slow drift of clouds floating at eye level.

The monastery started with a small temple built around that cave in 1692, and over time it grew into the dramatic complex of whitewashed walls, golden roofs, and hidden chambers that seems to hover between earth and sky. It was heavily affected by fire and earthquakes over the centuries, but each time it has been rebuilt with patient devotion.

The Tiger Nest hike is by far the most well-known thing about Bhutan. It is a pilgrimage in itself, both a physical challenge and a moving meditation. The trail begins gently, winding through a pine forest scented with resin and moss. Even if it occasionally climbs steeper, it still follows a well-maintained path of rocky steps that test lungs and legs alike. Halfway up comes the teahouse with a moment of relief and breathtaking views of the monastery.

Taktsand Waterfall, Tiger’s Nest Monastery, Bhutan

Soon, the path starts descending sharply on built-in steps that take a toll on the legs to a bridge that spans a waterfall plunging into the gorge below. And then finally climbs again on similar steps to the monastery, and after hundreds of final steps carved into the rock, you are relieved to see and touch the white walls, a powerful reward that dispels the fatigue, replaced by a deep, reverent stillness.

Within the dramatic cluster of buildings that make up Taktsang Lhakhang, the Tiger’s Nest is not a single shrine but a collection of nine temples (lhakhangs), each dedicated to a different manifestation of enlightenment. Together they form a spiritual map of Himalayan Buddhism, guiding pilgrims through layers of history, myth, protection, compassion, and realization.

At the heart of the complex lies Guru Lhakhang, built around the cave where Guru Rinpoche is said to have meditated after flying here on the back of a tigress. Inside, statues of Guru Rinpoche in his various forms dominate the space, surrounded by butter lamps that shimmer against ancient murals. On a side is the deeply revered Pelphug (the main meditation cave), a powerful place believed to hold the raw energy of Guru Rinpoche’s long retreat.

Another important sanctuary is dedicated to Avalokiteshvara (Chenrezig), the Bodhisattva of Compassion, whose many-armed form represents infinite mercy toward all beings. In contrast, the temple of Mahakala, fierce and dark, guarding the monastery against both visible and invisible threats filled with wrathful energy that actually represents its ferocious determination to destroy ignorance and obstacles on the spiritual path. Another temple is devoted to Yeshe Tsogyal, the enlightened consort of Guru Rinpoche, often considered the “Mother of Tibetan Buddhism.” While another chamber enshrines Vajrapani, the embodiment of spiritual power, whose strong, protective posture symbolizes the strength needed to overcome inner demons.

By walking Tiger’s Nest Monastery, Bhutan

Hidden in quieter corners are shrines dedicated to Buddha Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha who began the path; Amitabha, the Buddha of Infinite Light and the Western Pure Land; and Green Tara, the swift savioress who is called upon in moments of danger and fear. Walking through these eight temples seems like an unfolding spiritual journey. The monastery itself becomes a mandala carved into the cliff and cloud, with every deity serving as a guardian on the long and amazing road toward awakening.

Golden Prayers

Khamsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten hike, Punakha, Bhutan

There were other plans for the day, but everything changed on a whim caused by Narendra Modi’s visit to Bhutan for the Global Peace Prayer Festival. When it came time for him to return to India, the authorities closed the highway between Punakha and Paro for two hours. So, rather than sit and wait, we did what seemed far more appealing in this charming corner of Bhutan: we set off on a hike toward Khamsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten, wandering into a valley that spread out in layers of green and gold, stitched together by the gentle, winding curves of the Mo Chhu River. Rice fields ripple in the valley floor, dotted with traditional farmhouses and ox-drawn ploughs that seem to move at a more patient rhythm of time. Beyond them, the forested hills rise softly, fading from pine to a morning haze and finally to the pale blue silhouettes of the distant Himalayas.

The fall made the fields turn to a burnished gold, glowing under the Bhutanese sun. The dance of the butterflies, together with the birds’ call, adds their own mantras to the one uttered by the prayer flags that flicker in every direction. The whole landscape seems to point gently toward the stupa, the calm and watchful heart of the valley.

Below the stupa, life goes on in the rice fields, where farmers move slowly with sickles flashing briefly in the sun before they fall on the stalks of ripened rice. They are bent at the waist like we saw them before, maybe only in paintings and old pictures, working in a rhythm that feels almost ceremonial. The image resembles a living canvas, with the people and their synchronous motions adding humanity to the otherwise postcard-perfect landscape.

Khamsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten, Punakha, Bhutan

Khamsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten rises serenely above the green folds of the Punakha Valley. Commissioned by Her Majesty Queen Mother Ashi Tshering Yangdon Wangchuck, the stupa was built not as a public monument, but as a prayer crystallized into stone, a sacred structure meant to bring peace, harmony, and spiritual protection to Bhutan and the wider world.

Reached after a gentle walk through ripened rice fields and a short climb through pine forest, the chorten feels all the more rewarding when it finally comes into view, its white walls and golden spire glowing against the Himalayan backdrop like an offering to the sky.

Inside the stupa, each floor is a universe of its own, filled with intricate mandalas, fierce protective deities, and symbolic murals rooted in Vajrayana Buddhist teachings. The higher you climb the steps, the more advanced deities welcome you, ready to guide and help you on the way to higher learning and spirituality.

Mo Chu Valley, Khamsum Yulley from the top of Namgyal Chorten, Punakha, Bhutan

On the top terrace, under the gilded coils of the stupa, you feel an enveloping peace while admiring the valley far below, crossed by the meanders of the Mo Chu River that lazily flows through the golden fields, taking in its crystalline water the good words of the sutras, spread in all directions by the gentle breeze.

Close to Paro, Tachog Lhakhang perches like a hidden blessing over Paro Chhu. You can reach it by an iron suspension bridge draped in prayer flags that sway with every step. The bridge was built in the 15th century by the legendary Thangtong Gyalpo, a Leonardo of his time and place, a saint-engineer with various interests and talents. He is credited with remarkable iron work, including bridge construction across Bhutan, inventing the Tibetan opera, and being involved in the foundation of the first Lhasa’s medical college as well as one in Bhutan.. The monastery that is privately owned feels both remote and intimate, a quiet guardian of the valley for the passed six centuries.

Cranes

Each November, as winter settles gently over Bhutan’s high valleys, the black-necked cranes glide into Phobjikha like silent, elegant messengers from the Tibetan Plateau. These birds are deeply revered in Bhutanese culture, symbols of longevity, peace, and good fortune, and their arrival is met with a lot of excitement.

The moment they appear circling over the Gangteng Monastery, locals say the cranes are paying their respects before settling in the marshy valley floor. Their long, looping calls echo across the fields, announcing that the valley’s most honored seasonal guests have returned.

Black Necked Crane Festival, Gangteng Monastery, Phobjikha, Bhutan

To celebrate them, the Black-Necked Crane Festival takes place every year on 11 November in the courtyard of Gangteng Gompa, a monastery established in 1613 by the grandson of Pema Lingpa. Schoolchildren perform traditional dances dressed as cranes, flapping their wings, while monks and villagers join in songs praising the birds’ beauty and their role in maintaining Bhutan’s fragile high-altitude ecology.

It’s a charming blend of conservation and community pride, wrapped in music, masked dances, and steaming cups of butter tea. For a day, everyone in Phobjikha becomes an ambassador for these graceful birds, ensuring their myth, magic, and survival continue for generations.

The Black-Necked Crane Festival in Phobjikha is a new addition to the large collection of Bhutan’s centuries-old religious festivals. It was formally established in 1998 by the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature (RSPN), Bhutan’s main environmental NGO, but the people of Phobjikha had always lived in quiet coexistence with the cranes, avoiding loud machinery, postponing constructions, and even re-routing all electrical lines underground so the birds wouldn’t be harmed.

In time, the festival grew into one of Bhutan’s most beloved cultural-ecological celebrations that is held annually on 11 November in the courtyard of Gangteng Monastery, with a message of environmental stewardship.

The highlight—the children’s crane dance—was specifically choreographed to symbolize the birds’ elegant flight and their sacred circling of Gangteng Gompa upon arrival.

Lunch during the festival, Gangteng Monastery, Phobjikha, Bhutan

The festival lasts the entire day, and the courtyard of Gangtey Gompa fills with more locals and foreigners than I’ve seen at any other celebration. By lunchtime, the performances pause, and the courtyard transforms into one vast communal picnic: families spread out their packed meals on the ground, sharing food, gossip, and laughter before the dances resume.

With the festival’s popularity skyrocketing, finding accommodation in Phobjikha has become almost impossible, and we ended up—luckily—securing a homestay after every hotel had long filled up. That evening, we were welcomed with a traditional floor-served feast, the whole family sitting cross-legged around steaming bowls. During dinner, the power kept cutting out, sending us periodically onto the generator, and the only source of warmth was a nearby wood stove that had to be fed almost nonstop. But the modern twist came from our host, who enthusiastically snapped photos on her very contemporary mobile phone—proof that not everything in this valley is stuck in a bygone century.

Tang Valley

Chamkar River flows through Bumthang Valley, Bhutan

We left in the morning from Bumthang to hike and picnic in Tang valley, a charming place full of temples and sacred places along the Tang Chu river. After a short hike, we arrived on the shores of the river, where a deep pool is considered the region’s most sacred place and a pilgrimage site for many Bhutanese people: the Burning Lake. The legend says that the Terton (treasure revealer) Pema Lingpa, thought to have been the reincarnation of Padmasambhava, discovered here secret teachings containing Buddhist wisdom, teachings that were hidden by Padmasambhava in the 8th century.

In the 15th century, the Terton had a vision that a treasure was hidden in a place where the river widens, so he dived into the water holding a lit butter lamp, and resurfaced with a chest and a scroll, the lamp still aflame. The feat brought a name-change of the spot to Mebar Tsho, or the Burning Lake, and it became a major place of pilgrimage for Buddhist believers.

Not far from the lake, placed idyllically on the shore of the Tang Chu River, is Tang Rimochen Lhakhang, which takes its name from the black and yellow tiger-like stripes clearly visible on the massive rock behind the temple. According to legend, Guru Rinpoche meditated on this giant rock in the 8th century and left his footprint upon it. It is also said to be another footprint here belonging to a daughter of King Thisongdetsen, who came here on pilgrimage with Guru Rinpoche and is believed to have died at Rimochen.

Plowing the field in Tang valley, Bhutan

A great Nyingma master later prophesied that a temple would one day rise on this very spot, and not later after that, Terton Sherab Mebar visited the place in the 13th century and discovered a text inside a box buried in a rock crevice inhabited by a snake. Soon after, in the 14th century, Pema Lingpa arrived here with the express intention of building the temple directly beneath the cliff, uncovering later also an image of the Buddha and sacred religious texts.

Ogyen Choling Palace Museum, Tang Valley, Bhutan

We decided on a short hike to reach the final stop on our Tang Valley itinerary, walking through fields plowed the old-fashioned way, with farmers guiding a wooden plow pulled by two sturdy oxen. After about half an hour, we arrived at the manor of Ogyen Choling. Originally a 14th-century retreat for Nyingmapa masters that later grew into a monastery, the site was transformed in the 19th century into a manor by the Trongsa Penlop, the powerful provincial governor.

Today, Ogyen Choling remains privately owned by the same family, who have preserved its temples and reconverted the utse into an admirable museum worth visiting, showcasing regional history and a rich collection of ethnographic objects, fittingly named the Museum of the History and Life of Ogyen Choling.

Pema Choling Nunnery, Tang Valley, Bhutan

Following the Tang River, we stopped at a nunnery, a relatively new establishment, built in 2001 on two levels, home to over 100 nuns and functioning as a school. With no electricity, many of their studies take place by the light of kerosene lamps, where they learn philosophy, Dzongkha (Bhutan’s national language), and debate. Just a short visit and we continued back to Bumthang, to the Jakar Dzong, known from its own legend as the “White Bird.”

The Dzong has two very long, narrow courtyards separated by a 50-meter utse of remarkable architecture. Built in the 16th century, it stood as a steadfast fortress during the three 17th-century Tibetan invasions. Its strength lay partly in a secret advantage: an underground well supplying crystal-clear water, still accessible today if you descend—and later climb back!—more than 600 steps, passing a waterfall on the way down into a gorge.

Steps descending to Jakar Dzong’s water source, Bumthang, Bhutan

Cham

Atsara, Jambay Lhakhang, Bumthang, Bhutan

Jambay Lakhang is the oldest temple in Bumthang, founded in the 8th century by Songtsen Gyampo, the first king of Tibet. The legend says that the king founded 108 temples on the same day, all built on the body of a giant ogress that was terrorizing the people of Tibet. Only two of these temples are in Bhutan, the second in Paro. Jambay Lakhang’s tsechu continued in the morning with its final collection of cham dances, but not before introducing a set of funny characters named atsara, the clowns that were meant to create an entertaining atmosphere. At the same time, in the nearby Prakhar Duchoed, dating from the 16th century, another tsechu was happening that we witnessed the following day.

The stag dance in Jambay Lhakhang, Bumthang, Bhutan

The “four deer dance”, known as Shazam Cham, performed at the beginning of festivals to sanctify the space, symbolizes the purification of evil, the exorcism of negative forces, and the subduing of a demon by Guru Rinpoche.

Black Hats dance, Jambay Lhakhang, Bumthang, Bhutan

Chams are sacred masked dances performed by monks that either depict events from the life of Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava), the tax collector/monk who brought Buddhism to Tibet, or for subduing demons.

Black Hat dance, Prakhar Duchoed, Bumthang, Bhutan

The “black hat dance”, whose name comes from the distinctive black hats worn by the dancers, is a sacred cham dance performed to symbolize the subjugation of evil forces and the victory of good over evil. It is a ritualistic performance rooted in Vajrayāna, tantric Buddhism, and is a key part of festivals (tshechu).

Ging-Tsholing Dance, Prakhar Duchoed, Bumthang, Bhutan

Ging Tsholing Cham is one of Bhutan’s most striking sacred dances, a full-blown theatrical showdown between good and evil. The performance features two kinds of wrathful deities: the Ging, messengers of a wrathful Buddha, and the Tsholing, formidable guardian spirits. Together, they sweep through the festival grounds like a supernatural cleanup crew, purifying the space, removing obstacles, and showering blessings on anyone close enough (or brave enough) to stand in their path.

The Tsholing, danced by monks, represent guardian deities such as the four kings of the cardinal directions, and add a more solemn, thundering presence to the scene. The Ging dancers, coming later to the scene, wear fierce masks crowned with fluttering flags, tiger-skin skirts, and carry drums and sticks that they wield with a mix of intensity and mischievous charm.

What unfolds is a turbulent, high-energy ritual where cosmic forces clash, the Ging darting through the crowd with dramatic lunges that somehow manage to be both terrifying and oddly playful, chasing the Tsholing out of the scene..

Ging-Tsoling, Jambay Lhakhang, Bumthang, Bhutan

In the end, the dancers, having chased off evil influences, circle back to bless the spectators, leaving everyone purified, protected, and just a bit breathless from the spectacle.

Pholay Molay dance, Jambay Lhakhang, Bumthang, Bhutan

The Pholay Molay dance, also known as “The Dance of the Noblemen and Ladies,” is a Bhutanese cham mask dance that features a crude, comedic drama about a royal couple, offering a moral lesson about avoiding harmful behaviors.

Young monks playing video games on phones during festival, Prakhar Duchoed, Bumthang, Bhutan

While all the drama unfolded in the temple’s courtyard with all the adults immersed in the festival, the temple’s top tier told a very different story: a row of young monks perched along the wall, hunched over their phones, happily absorbed in video games and utterly oblivious to the sacred spectacle taking place below.

Naked Dance

Waiting for Tercham in Jambay Lakhang, Bumthang, Bhutan

And now we are finally in Jambay Lakhang in Bumthang, freezing at midnight to attend the naked dance – tercham. But photography is strictly forbidden during the tercham, with penalties ranging from hefty fines to—legend has it—being turned into the very evil spirits the dancers are trying to banish, though in reality, you’ll most likely just be kicked off the ground. So no naked pictures, if that’s what you were expecting. Not too much is publicly known about these rare naked dances, preserved in just a few remote communities, and believed to descend from an 8th-century Tibetan ritual instituted by king Trisong Detsen, when teenage boys were paraded nude through the capital to absorb the kingdom’s misfortunes hurled at them by the crowd. In our days, the tercham itself was preceded by a masked dance of terrifying, elaborate figures meant to prepare the ground for the more secretive rite that followed.

Masked dance before Tercham in Jambay Lakhang, Bumthang, Bhutan

At the tercham, twelve naked monks with cloth-wrapped faces stepped into the freezing midnight air, led by a thirteenth in red knee-length trousers and a wang gi over his shoulders who directed their movements as they huddled, argued theatrically, and surged toward the crowd in chaotic, firelit formations. Their antics—flashing lights on gyrating phalluses, mock-throwing themselves towards the villagers, even briefly miming copulation or humping each other—provoked roars of laughter that were themselves part of the ritual’s cleansing power. The scene often felt like a bacchanal or a dance of devils circling a single flame. After a brief retreat inside the temple, the monks returned in a more ordered formation, circling the fire and miming the casting of the community’s misfortunes into the blaze, concluding a night that combined ancient exorcism with village comedy, yet still served as a potent act of purification.

Road to Bumthang

The road from Punakha to Bumthang is one of Bhutan’s great mountain journeys. It is a kind of slow-motion roller coaster through the clouds, twisting hairpin bends that dip quickly through landscapes so vast and pure they seem almost unreal. You pass spectacular waterfalls, and occasionally come across a cow standing meditatively in the middle of the road. If you were too tired to take in the scenery when you drove into Punakha, this road will show you that the entire country is shaped by mountains covered entirely with forests as far as the eye can see, and on this immense green canvas, there isn’t a single scarred spot, not the slightest sign of deforestation, just trees upon trees stretching endlessly.

The first big climb takes you up to Pele La Pass, around 3,400 meters high, where prayer flags flap wildly while the passing Bhutanese yell Hagelo!. On a clear day, and we were lucky to have one, the snow-capped peaks of the Black Mountains glisten in the sun, their grandeur adding a majestic frame to the endless green valleys below.

The road then curls down through quaint hamlets and pine forests, where farmhouses with painted windows and drying chilies catch the sun, small scenes that make your camera jolt at every bend to the annoyance of your driver, who just stopped the car two minutes before for another shot.

One of the hundred waterfalls on the way to Bumthang, Bhutan

Along the road to Bumthang, a sudden curve reveals another waterfall tumbling down the cliffs in silver ribbons and they are so many, tens or maybe over a hundred, and at one point, you give up stopping for pictures because you do have to reach Bumthang for the night. In any case you will be stopped for lunch in the most picturesque lunch place where the above waterfall tears in the people’s plates.

Trongsa is the halfway point that feels like the midpoint of both geography and history. A gleaming white stupa politely welcomes you. Its style is unusual for Bhutan as it was built in the 18th century in the Boudhanath style, a tiny replica of the majestic one in Kathmandu. You stop and go around it, clockwise, and continue your journey.

The majestic Trongsa Dzong sprawls across a ridge ahead, half fortress, half cloud palace. In the past, every traveler to eastern Bhutan had to pass beneath its watchful gaze, but even today, as you descend the zigzag road toward it, you feel you’re driving straight into a medieval painting.

Strategically stretched across a ridge high above the Mangde Chhu, Trongsa Dzong looks less like a building and more like a small walled city cascading down the mountainside. Built in 1644, it was the seat of power for Bhutan’s royal family long before the monarchy officially began. Every Bhutanese king has first served as the Penlop (governor) of Trongsa, making it the symbolic cradle of Bhutanese kingship.

Its endless stairways, narrow corridors, and hidden courtyards feel like a maze designed to confuse even the most confident attacker. From its balconies, the view sweeps across the valley for miles, ideal for spotting invaders in the old days.

Then comes Yotong La Pass, your gateway into Bumthang, Bhutan’s spiritual core. Just when you think you are very close, you leave the two-lane “highway to Ura” and enter a road that, for the most part, has a single paved lane, riddled with sizeable holes and occasionally blocked by cows or yaks who have claimed the smoothest stretches for themselves. One more climb brings you to Kikila Pass – the fifth after you left Thimpu – , draped in fluttering red windhorse flags, and after more than nine hours on the road, you finally arrive in Bumthang — ready, in true local style, to head straight to see the naked monks dancing. Traveling to central Bhutan may sound exhilarating, and for sure it is, but it takes far longer than expected, and no matter how much enthusiasm you muster, the journey still consumes an entire day — with another full day needed for the return trip!

Phallus

The view from Chimi Lakhang, Punakha, Bhutan

We came to Punakha for its serene monasteries and the arresting dzong. But our way was diverted to a smaller temple located in Sobcam village. Here stands Chimi Lhakhang, the Temple of Fertility. And the fertility referred to is not for nature but exclusively for women. The temple was built in honor of the famously unorthodox Lama Drukpa Kunley, also known as the “Divine Madman.”

He lived in the 15^th century and taught what is known as the “Crazy Dharma” because his teachings were, let’s put it this way, slightly…different. Lama Kunley preached Buddhism through wine, women, and wildly inappropriate humor, wielding what he called his “Thunderbolt of Flaming Wisdom” (you may imagine what he referred to) to bless women and banish demons. He’s also credited with creating Bhutan’s national animal, the takin, after he magically fused the head of a goat and the body of a cow to amuse some skeptical devotees after he gorged on both animals.

Carrying the fertility phallus at Chimi Lakhang, Sobcam, Punakha, Bhutan

But behind the apparent irreverence lay a deep spiritual genius who stripped Buddhism of its stiff formalities, mocked hypocrisy in the monkhood, and taught that joy, laughter, and love were just as sacred as meditation and mantras. And to consolidate the “cult” of this Divine Madman, a phallus became the symbol to ward off envy and evil spirits. Pilgrims flock to this temple to seek fertility blessings, where monks hand out the benediction with a huge wooden penis. Wooden phalluses are gathered on the altar or swing from the eaves, and couples who came here looking for solutions to cure their infertility are given a large and heavy brown phallus with attached stripes like a backpack to circumambulate three times the temple. The results of this spiritual infertility treatment are collected in a book where the couples who were able to conceive sent letters and pictures with their child, together with their story.

Drukpa Kunley also left a mark on Bhutanese art and humor, encouraging the now-iconic phallic symbol to be painted on houses as a sign of welcome and good luck. So you are surrounded by flying phalluses, smiling ones or others with eyes seeing everything around, not to count the sculptured red phalluses with nuts mounted on gates and tens of rockets, planes, missiles shaped like, you guessed, sold in the souvenir shops.

Dzongs

The road leaving Paro continues to climb and soon reaches Dochula Pass. Perched at 3,100 meters between Thimphu and Punakha, the pass offers a breathtaking panorama of the Himalayas framed by 108 chortens gleaming like white pearls against the clouds.

The colossal whitewashed Bhutanese dzongs, perched dramatically above rivers or valleys, look as if they were dropped from the clouds by particularly artistic deities. Most of them date back to the 17th century, when Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, the man who more or less invented Bhutan as a unified state, decided that every important region needed a dzong. Their architecture is a feast for the eyes. You walk through sweeping courtyards, towering central towers called utse that have crimson bands along the rooflines, and detailed window carvings.

Dzongs in Bhutan originated in the 12th century as fortified structures to defend against either the Tibetan forces from the north or the British-Indian troops from the south.

But what surprised the most is that these dzongs are neither museums nor dusty relics. They’re buzzing centers of Bhutanese life, where monks chant in incense-filled temples while civil servants dressed in go and kira type away in offices just a courtyard apart. All dzongs house both the region’s administration and the monastic clergy under one roof. As a result, visitors are allowed to wander only through the courtyards and to step inside the monastic assembly hall, where a magnificent 15-meter-high statue of Buddha — or in some cases Guru Rinpoche — invites to meditation.

While bureaucrats elsewhere moved into gleaming glass towers, leaving their old fortresses to tourists or time, the Bhutanese still conduct their affairs within walls steeped in history. A glance away from the beautifully carved eaves and painted beams might land on a modest sign above a doorway that looks like the entrance to a temple, only to reveal “Bureau of Land Management,” “ICT Division,” or “Department of Education.” From one courtyard comes the soft rhythm of fingers on keyboards; from the next, the deep murmur of monks chanting.

Punakha Dzong was built in 1637 by Zhabdrung himself at the confluence of two rivers — the Pho Chhu (father) and Mo Chhu (mother). For over 300 years, it was Bhutan’s capital and still hosts the most important royal ceremonies, including coronations and weddings. It was in Punakha Dzong that Bhutan’s first National Assembly was held in 1953, marking the dawn of its modern democracy. But come festival season, the dzong courtyards turn into lively stages for mask dances and spiritual theatrics, with villagers arriving in their best clothes and plenty of butter lamps spread around.

Thimphu

The Buddha Dordenma in Thimphu, rises gracefully above the valley, a serene and shining presence visible from nearly every corner of Bhutan’s capital. Standing 51 meters tall and cast in bronze with gilded gold, it was built to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Fourth King and to symbolize peace and prosperity for Bhutan and the world. Inside the statue are one hundred twenty five thousand smaller Buddhas, each representing an offering of compassion and blessing.

Global Peace Prayer Festival, Thimphu, Bhutan

It so happened that the Buddha Dordenma statue served as the central venue for the inaugural Global Peace Festival, which began today, the very first of its kind to be held in Bhutan. Visitors have been queuing for hours to circumambulate an awe-inspiring structure adorned with delicate woven spirit catchers that flutter gently in the mountain breeze.

Monks collecting the money offered at the Global Peace Prayer Festival, Thimphu, Bhutan

Around the base, smaller statues and shrines invite pilgrims to leave offerings, creating a vibrant, devotional atmosphere. It reflects Bhutan’s spiritual core while highlighting its growing role as a venue for global gatherings dedicated to peace and harmony.

Bhutan’s history feels a bit like a high-altitude legend, half myth, half master plan. The “land of dragons”, Drukyul, before it became a country, was a land of wandering monks, mountain hermits, and mythological creatures. But in the 17th century, Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, a Tibetan lama with imagination and a lot of guts, unified the valleys under one banner and one ruler under the title of Drukdesi, temporary ruler.

Thimphu Dzong is the seat of the Bhutan government, Bhutan

He built the first dzong—those majestic fortress-monasteries that still look like they were dreamed up by a divine architect. It all happened in the first half of the 1600s and 20 dzongs for its 20 regions spread across the land. But Shabdrung had also the vision to separate the administrative power of the religious one avoiding the type of theocracy as in Tibet, under the the Dalai Lama. The vision held in time and for centuries afterward, Bhutan lived quietly, happy to let the rest of the world rush about while it perfected the art of staying serene.

Then came the 20th century and contrary to the world’s trend, Bhutan adopted a monarchy in 1907 and less than 50 years later there were election for its first parliament. And the monarchy proved unusually thoughtful, rarely clinging to power for power’s sake. In 2008, the Fourth King voluntarily handed over his ruling prerogatives to a constitutional monarchy, guided by its famously cheerful philosophy of Gross National Happiness. Bhutan is a Buddhist state, officially recognizing only one religion. But to make sure democracy works, it maintains a clear separation between religion and governance: monks are prohibited from voting or engaging in political activity.

So while other nations fret over stock markets and GDP, Bhutan’s administrators are busy measuring smiles, planting trees – Bhutan is the only carbon-negative country – and ensuring that progress feels as good as it looks from the mountaintops.

In a country with no traffic lights there is only one policeman graciously guiding traffic in Thimphu, Bhutan

Flying by Everest

Mount Everest on the way to Paro, Bhutan

Landing in Paro, home to Bhutan’s only international airport, is an experience in itself. On a clear day, the Himalaya range unfurls in full regalia—an endless procession of snow-draped peaks shimmering in the sun. That’s the only way you’ll see it, for flights can’t land in Bhutan when clouds roll in. It’s not a question of missing technology, but of geography: as the plane begins its descent, it flies below the mountain summits, threading its way through narrow valleys with ridges rising close on both sides.

The aircraft banks left and right, tracing the contours of the terrain until, almost miraculously, the Paro Valley opens below. “You’re lucky,” we were told upon landing. “The morning flight from Bangkok had to be diverted to India because of the clouds and will come later in the day.”

Ta, the Paro Dzong watch tower/National Museum, Paro, Bhutan

To visit Tibet or Mustang in northern Nepal, you need a special permit; for Bhutan, you need a visa. But getting that visa isn’t a simple online form—you have to team up with a local agency that will arrange your tour, collect the inevitable Sustainable Development Fee and a hefty sum per day of travel, and make sure you’re properly escorted. Even if you travel solo, a guide and a driver will be there to shepherd (and mildly surveil) you from start to finish, following a carefully plotted itinerary. Mine were already waiting at the airport, smiling broadly and greeting me with a white kata scarf around my neck—a soft and silky welcome to the world’s happiest kingdom. From there we drove straight to Ta Dzong, an old watchtower turned into the National Museum of Bhutan. It’s the perfect place to dive headfirst into the mysteries of Tibetan Buddhism: thangkas, masks, and ancient relics whispering tales of dragons, saints, and kings. The tower itself, beautifully restored after the 2011 earthquake, stacks up five floors of treasures inside walls nearly four meters thick. To protect its precious religious treasures and ancient artifacts after the 2011 earthquake, the government built a new museum nearby and carefully moved everything there while Ta Dzong underwent restoration.

If I started listing the endless parade of deities, manifestations, heroes, masters, and disciples on display in the museum—all part of the wonderfully intricate world of Tibetan Buddhism—it would take pages, and let’s be honest, nobody would read them. So here’s the short version: Bhutanese Buddhism follows the Kagyu school, one of four main traditions. The others are Nyingma (the venerable old-timer), Sakya, and Gelug—instantly recognizable by their yellow hats and, of course, by their most famous character, the Dalai Lama.

Perched on a hill above the valley, Paro Dzong—known as Rinpung Dzong—is as grand as it is graceful, a fortress that looks straight out of a legend. Perched above the Paro River, the Dzong has been a central part of Bhutanese life since the 17th century.

It was built in 1646 by the legendary lama and military leader Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, who was able for the first time to gather under one rule all people of neighboring areas. The Dzong was designed to defend the valley from invading forces while serving as a hub of administration and monastic life.

Today, it still houses monks and local officials, its courtyards and towering walls buzzing quietly with daily routines rather than battles. With its intricate woodwork, golden roofs, and fluttering prayer flags, the dzong makes you feel transported to another century, looking like a living museum, part history lesson, part spiritual retreat, but super photogenic.

And now comes one of Bhutan’s charming Buddhist legends: a lama, invited from the profoundly spiritual lands of Tibet, arrived to save both the valley and the health of its people. The story is set at Dungtse Lhakhang in Paro, where long ago the valley was terrorized by a fearsome ogress whose very breath made the locals ill. In the 15th century, the lama built the temple with a clever plan designed to subdue her. When her breath struck the temple walls, it was reflected back onto herself, pinning her in place and protecting the villagers. The rock behind the temple is said to the the petrified ogress breathing her own breath. Maybe the legend was developed by Oral B or Colgate.

Victorian devotion

Belur Math and Ramakrishna Mission, Kolkata, India

Again India. But at least this time, not for India’s sake but as a base for exploring the Himalaya kingdoms. And as long as you cannot fly directly, I chose to fly into Kolkata, the old British Raj capital Calcutta, a city where the colonial history and tradition are entwined with nationalism and profound devotion.

Drakeshwar Kali Temple ghat, Kolkata, India

And this deep devotion is everywhere, starting with the Dakshineswar Kali Temple, located on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, where Kali, the most wrathful manifestation of Lord Shiva’s wife Parvati, sticks out its horrifying red tongue. The temple is a major pilgrimage site and is also known for its association with the spiritual leader Sri Ramakrishna, who served as the head priest there. Not far from it is Belur Math that contain the ashes of the famous swami on the compound of Ramakrishna Mission, the foundation he started.

The city’s colonial bones remain visible in its architecture: the white dome of Victoria Memorial rises from Maidan’s greenery like a marble echo of imperial grandeur. From above looks like a vast marble cake gleaming like an apparition from another age. Commissioned in memory of Queen Victoria after her death in 1901, it stands as both tribute and relic: part mausoleum, part museum, part imperial hallucination, at a time when the Brits imagined Calcutta as the “Second City of the Empire.”

But the dreamed permanence vanished, proving again that everything is temporary. The flag on top is of India, and above Victoria’s statue, an entire floor is dedicated to the ones who fought against the British dream and brought independence to the nation, fed by Tagore’s idealism and Subhas Chandra Bose’s defiance.

Nearby, the neo-Gothic spire of St. Paul’s Cathedral rises amid banyan trees, its stained-glass windows filtering tropical light into quiet Anglican order. Here, the hymns of empire once resonated through a world that had a completely different vibration.

Rickshaw in the New Market, Kolkata, India

Yet, beneath these remnants of the Raj lies a different rhythm, of rickshaw pullers calling through narrow lanes, of incense and conch shells announcing morning puja,

Flower vendors string garlands of marigolds for morning puja to please Lord Shiva in the Flower market right under the famous Howrah Bridge, another symbol of the defunct empire.

In the New Old Market, chaos turns into rhythm. Spice sellers chant prices over heaps of turmeric and chili, while the air thickens with fried oil. Butchers, tailors, and goldsmiths all shout their trade in a clamorous symphony of survival while hawkers sell everything from saris to cellphone covers,

But in spite of the long gone or present political flavors, at the city’s heart beats Kali, the dark mother and fierce protector whose image dominates shrines and street corners alike. In Kalighat Temple, one of the most sacred Shakti Peethas, hordes of believers seem to mob the goddess offering hibiscus flowers and blood-red sindoor. The goddess’ protruding tongue and garland of skulls symbolize both destruction and rebirth, a symbol of life’s chaos and contradiction that defines Kolkata.

Gorzo@MARe

At the Museum of Recent Art (MARe) in Bucharest, Dumitru Gorzo, one of the defining voices of post-2000 Romanian contemporary art, presents Inwards/Outwards, a bold visual odyssey that reimagines the act of drawing.

The MAR outside wall painted by Dumitru Gorzo, Bucharest, Romania

Living and working between Romania and Brooklyn, in the United States, Gorzo transforms MARe inside and out: even the museum’s façade becomes his canvas, marked by sweeping blue chalk drawings that bring sacred imagery into public space.

Within, the exhibition unfolds as an evolving journey, from the primal gesture of a line to reliefs, vibrations, and paintings.

His signature “gorzolanie,” those mischievous, archaic creatures born from the subconscious, evoke both humor and unease, linking the exhibition’s restless energy to the mythic and magical layers of Romanian tradition.

A Walk in the Park

Jewish Night

The concept of Culture by Night was initiated at the end of the 1990s in Europe, most specifically in Berlin, with a museum open night. From it emerged many other events happening by night: the night of the lights, of the galleries, libraries, and so on.

An event that may have happened before, but I was never part of, was a night when some of Bucharest’s synagogues stayed open.

Holy Union Synagogue, Bucharest, Romania

It was a treat because, although I was born and raised in this city, I had never had the chance to visit one of its synagogues — even though I’ve visited many others around the world.

Holy Union Synagogue Jewish Museum, Bucharest, Romania

And besides the spectacular Coral Temple, two other synagogues were open, one of them hosting the Jewish Museum with an impressive painting collection of famous Jewish-Romanian artists.

Yeshua Tova Synagogue, Bucharest, Romania

Geta Bratescu@Artwill

In a newly revitalized corner of Bucharest, in the Bucureștii Noi neighborhood, Artwill — a contemporary art center — has recently opened, transforming a former furniture factory into a place filled with light, color, and ideas. The new space expands the reach of contemporary art galleries into a part of the city that certainly wasn’t known for such things before.

The first exhibition hosted here is dedicated to Geta Brătescu, one of the most original figures in Romanian art, under the title “In the Beginning Was the Drawing.”

Her works—whether drawings, collages, photographs, or textiles—seem to converse with one another, with a subtle humor and delicate poetry, exploring inner freedom, the body, identity, and the interplay between order and chaos.

The exhibition is not just a retrospective, but also an invitation to explore both the artist’s works and the Artwill space itself, which thus becomes a new meeting point between art and the city—a laboratory of ideas and emotions.

Spot Light

Lumea vazuta din Colombia

Macondo-ul meu

Storm King – Hike

Back on Storm King Mountain. This time, not for art but for a hike on Storm King Mountain Loop, a 3.5-mile hike with a majestic view over the Hudson.

The views over the river encompass both the upper and lower Hudson, with views of Pollepel Island and the Bannerman Castle towards the Upper Hudson.

Upper Hudson from Storm King Mountain Loop, NY

The view towards the Lower Hudson has side views of the Breakneck Ridge and Bull Hill overlooking the charming village of Cold Spring.

Lower Hudson from Storm King Mountain Loop, NY

Storm King – Art

Last sunset

The last evening on Fire Island felt like a quiet farewell. The sand still held the day’s warmth, but the breeze had turned cooler, carrying a faint saltiness that hinted at the season’s end. It was a beautiful reminder that every golden evening slips quietly into memory, leaving only the sound of the tide and the soft imprint of bare feet in the sand.

Empty Beach

Once the children returned to school and the crowds departed from the Cape, the beach stood deserted, its wide sands swept clean of footprints, given back to the gulls and the tide. And with no trace of wind, the ocean lay in perfect serenity, its waters fully transparent, revealing every ripple of sand beneath. This is the Cape at its best, when silence and beauty converge in a perfect moment.

De la Hohenzollern la Solidarność

“Dar nici povestea lui Albert de Hohenzollern și nici frumusețea orașului mă aduseseră aici. Aveam un alt motiv să ajung în Gdańsk: o amintire care m-a bântuit timp de decenii. Acum 45 de ani eram la Varșovia călătorind independent prin țările socialiste. Tocmai terminasem de vreo lună facultatea, și împreună cu trei colegi pornisem la drum cu rucsaci și saci de dormit într-o drumeție inspirată din cărțile lui Kerouac citite la Biblioteca Americană. In Varșovia am fost martor la ceva ce nu am putut înțelege atunci: un grup de oameni adunați în jurul unor tramvaie oprite. Imaginea mi-a revenit ca un vis în toți anii care au urmat, în care detaliile periferice se estompează, dar esența e atât de clară încât aproape că le pot vedea acelor oameni fețele încruntate. Dar imaginea care mi s-a învârtit prin minte în toți acești ani nu a fost niciodată surprinsă pe film. Cu doar 4 role de film ORWO diapozitiv pentru o lună întreagă de călătorie, scena unui tramvai blocat părea prea banală. În România, tramvaiele oprite erau obișnuite, deci de ce să fi făcut o poză? Nu știam de ce se adunaseră oamenii ăia acolo și preocupați de cum o să facem să ne întoarcem la camping, am început în glumă să strigăm în engleză: Are you on strike?, mândri că știam cuvântul pentru grevă dar fiind convinși că așa ceva nu poate avea loc într-o țară socialistă.”

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Again Martha

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Memorial

Each year, the ‘Memorial to Overdose’ transforms Boston Common into a field of remembrance, where more than 22,000 purple flags honor Massachusetts residents lost to addiction. Many flags bear names and personal touches, testaments to lives cut short. The memorial was part of International Overdose Awareness Day, observed in Boston on August 31, 2025.

Postcards from P-town

Tennis

Postcards from the Edge

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Throughout the East End

May Pang hosted a photography show with pictures that she took of John Lennon while they were together in the 18 months period of 1973-1975, a period that Lennon called “The Lost Weekend”. A documentary about this period “The Lost Weekend. A Love story” was produced in 2022 and some photos used in the doc are part of this exhibit at Keyes Art Gallery in Sag Harbor.

Hiking with feathered friends, Elisabeth Morton Wildlife Refuge, Long Island

The wildlife refuge, a bit out of Sag Harbor, is a bird paradise. The birds have even their own private beach in Jessup Neck, fenced out of intruding humans for protecting the piping plover. But in the surrounding forest you may bump into the not-so-protected wild turkeys that roam freely.

If the hike through the forest wasn’t enough, you can wander around the lighthouse, pausing to watch fishermen haul in their catch while the sea gulls circle above. Nearby, a growing crowd gathers on the lighthouse grass and along the rocky shore, waiting to hear the voice of Norah Jones in concert by the ocean between continents.

A sunset watched by a huge crowd, Montauk, Long Island

And everything draws to a close beneath a dramatic sunset, the sky ablaze with molten gold, crimson, and violet. The large crowd gathered, some sprawled on blankets across the sand, others leaning against their cars in the packed parking lot at the eastern tip of Long Island while the ocean catches the last fire of the day.

Summer Dance

Days by the beach in Ocean Beach Park, Fire Island

Oasele păgâne ale Balticilor

“…Lituania a fost ultima țară europeană care a adoptat creștinismul în 1387. În timp
ce restul Europei construia catedrale și aduna sfinți, lituanienii încă se închinau
zeilor păgâni. Și chiar și după „convertire” (care aici a fost stimulată nu cu bere
ci cu câte o cămașă de lână de enoriaș), mulți l-au acceptat pe Iisus doar formal,
continuând să adore pădurile, râurile și dealurile. Chiar și crucea catolică de pe
turlele bisericilor are atâtea adaosuri încât de la distanță pare un soare.
Astăzi mulți lituanieni fac parte din Romuva, renașterea modernă a păgânismului baltic care celebrează natura, strămoșii și festivalurile de sezon cu
focuri și coronițe de flori în poieni sacre sub privirea zeiței eco Pedeina,
protectoarea pădurilor și a naturii…
Dar dacă vrei să-ți pierzi complet simțul realității, du-te în Republica Užupis,
cartierul artistic autodeclarat „republică boemă independentă” din Vilnius, cu o
constituție gravată pe plăci de inox în toate limbile care pare scrisă după un cocktail
de absint cu anumite ciuperci. Articolul 12: „Un câine are dreptul să fie câine.” Republica are propriul președinte și parlament care se adună într-un bar pe malul râului Neris, unde articolul 1 proclamă că „Toți au dreptul să locuiască lângă un râu.”
În geopolitica actuală, Vilnius e mai mult linie de front decât poveste de
basm. Unul din cinci locuitori e acum refugiat din Ucraina, Belarus sau Rusia.
Dar și aici planează umbra agenților FSB și belaruși care trimit constant amenințări cu moartea exilaților. Astăzi, Vilnius e un sanctuar, dar și o țintă.”

Cititi articolul la pagina 18 si 20 aici

Playing tourists

Whenever friends and family come to visit New York, we show them around and end up playing tourists in our own neighborhood. Besides the usual spots, we often stumble on places we’ve heard of but never got around to checking out.

And in the summer, the ‘River to River Festival’ brings so many events that you sometimes discover them by accident—like ‘Dance is Life’ at Pier 76, now in its fifth year.”