The Christ statue with human teeth (screenshot via Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia/INAH TV)

Restoration workers in Mexico were in for a surprise when a recent x-ray of a bloody statue of Christ revealed its eight teeth were real human incisors. As National Institute of Anthropology and History restoration team member Fanny Unikel told the BBC, the teeth "were probably donated as a token of gratitude," noting that although it's the "first time human teeth have been found in a sculpture," it's not unknown for parishioners have given their hair as wigs to saint statues.

The "Lord of Patience" statue, as it's known, is usually lodged in San Bartolo Cuautlalpan, north of Mexico City. Even without knowledge of the human remains gnawed beneath its lips, it's a ghastly statue, absolutely drenched in blood, a wound to the cheek exposing skull. Created in the 18th century, it's certainly a rather gruesome anomaly. However, compared to other religious sites of human remains like the Brno and Sedlec ossuaries or the skeleton of St. Vincent de Paul encased in a wax mannequin, it's not terribly shocking. And bits of humans have turned up in other art to give an authentic air of life, such as Edgar Degas' "Little Dancer of Fourteen Years" wearing a wig of real human hair. But what's unique here is the anonymity of someone who wasn't a saint being subtly immortalized as the icon of Christianity, possibly as a benediction for some blessing that we will never know. 

Below is a video (in Spanish) from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History showing the statue and an x-ray of the teeth:

Discover more strange statues on Atlas Obscura > 

"A View On The Catskill, Early Autumn" Thomas Cole (1837) (via Wikimedia)

Nearly 200 years ago, English-born painter Thomas Cole rode a steamship up New York's Hudson River on a weekend getaway to the Catskill Mountains. Cole was so struck by the dramatic views and the vivid colors of the river valley's fall foliage that he got off twice along the way to explore and make sketches for future paintings. Within two years, Cole had moved upstate permanently, and other artists flocked to join him, producing a series of landscapes so rich in detail that modern art scholars can pinpoint exactly where each artist stood as he worked. The Hudson River School Trail, maintained by the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, has marked off several of these spots so visitors can take in the same views. 

The trail also honors the first American art movement. In the 1800s, the United States was developing its own identity as a brand-new nation; the cultural elite sought art that celebrated anything distinctly American, and embraced the dramatic landscapes produced by Cole and his compatriots. Art lovers were inspired to visit the spots themselves, seeking out the vast, unspoiled vistas in the works.

Sometimes, though, the wilderness wasn't unspoiled. One such site is Kaaterskill Clove, a deep gorge just west of Palenville, New York. In the early 1800s, the Clove was filled with hemlock trees, and several tanneries set up shop to take advantage of the access to cheap lumber. In Cole's time, however, the Clove was already in rapid deforestation. But he put the trees back in his 1827 painting "The Clove," showing the valley bedecked with a restored fall color. 

Thomas Cole, "The Clove" (1827) (via Wikimedia)

Cole’s work helped an early environmental push to protect the Hudson Valley. Today, plenty of trees have grown back in the Clove, so contemporary visitors can witness the same beauty as in Cole’s painting. 

Kaaterskill Clove (photograph by Colin D. Young)

Near Kaaterskill Clove is the breathtaking Kaaterskill Falls. The two-tier waterfall became a tourist must-see in the 1800s, immortalized not only by Hudson River School painters, but also by writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving, whose Rip Van Winkle encounters the Falls after his long sleep. It was Irving’s mention of the Falls in his story which inspired Thomas Cole to seek them out.

Thomas Cole, "Falls Of The Kaaterskill" (1826) (via Wikimedia)

In the past, a hiking trail went all the way behind the cascade; the trail now ends at the base of the Falls.

Kaaterskill Falls (photograph by Colin D. Young)

Cole’s painting of the view from Sunset Rock, another peak near Tannersville, includes a building absent today — the demolished Catskill Mountain House Hotel. The Catskill Mountain House enjoyed several decades as New York's finest Catskills hotel; however, part of its popularity came from the belief that it sat on the tallest mountain in the region. Then in 1880, a visiting surveyor discovered another mountain to the southwest was actually taller. Business at the Catskill Mountain House dried up. It closed in 1941, and was torn down in the 1960s. Still, the rest of Cole’s view from Sunset Rock is largely unchanged — and as spectacular as ever.

Thomas Cole, "Catskill Mountain House, The Four Elements" (1843-44) (via Wikimedia)

Sunset Rock (photograph by Colin D. Young)

A bit further south, visitors can find three trail stops on the grounds of the Mohonk House, another mountain resort established in 1869. Its founders also purchased 280 acres of the surrounding valley, and the current owners open the grounds to hikers (with the purchase of a grounds pass). The lake and the surrounding Shawnagunk Mountains were luring visitors long before that, including painter Sanford Robinson Gifford, a Hudson Valley-born painter who frequented the ten-room inn which preceded Mohonk House. His view of the Shawnagunk range from the “Sky Top” trail is almost unchanged.

Sanford Robinson Gifford, "From The Shawnagunk Mountains" (1823-1880) (via Wikimedia)

Current view (photograph by Colin D. Young)

The view of “Artists’ Rock,” however, is now a bit different. Granted, this work by Worthington Whittredge wasn’t entirely accurate — he added three woodsmen around a campfire in his "Twilight in the Shawnagunks," and depicted the rock as much bigger than it is in real life. 

Worthington Whittredge, "Twilight In The Shawnagunks" (via artcyclopedia.com)

Today, visitors will find a gazebo built upon the rock, but the view of Eagle Cliff in the distance remains.

Mohonk Artist's Rock Gazebo (photograph by Colin D. Young)

Mohonk Lake features in a number of Hudson River School works as well, such as this 1858 painting by Scottish-born William Hart:

William Hart, "Lake Among The Hills" (1858) (via Wikimedia)

Whittredge used it as well, and the ubiquitous Thomas Cole also has a work featuring Lake Mohonk. The spot where they all stood is near the present Mohonk House’s dock.

photograph by Colin D. Young

While many of the Hudson River School artists were taken with the mountains and cliffs surrounding the Hudson, Gifford also used the Hudson River. His "Hook Mountain Near Nyack" depicts the river at its widest point, winding past Hook Mountain just north of Croton-on-Hudson.

Sanford Robinson Gifford, "Hook Mountain Near Nyack" (1866) (courtesy Yale University Art Gallery)

This beach view is in Croton Point Park. The exact spot is a bit tricky to find, as it’s only reachable from a side trail near the RV park. But visitors who persevere will find a tiny beach offering the exact view of Hook Mountain which Gifford depicted in 1866.

photograph by the author

Johann Carmiencke was a later member of the Hudson River School. Carmiencke came to New York in 1851, fleeing Germany during a border war with Denmark; the Hudson River reminded him of the German Rhine, and he took to the landscape instantly. This 1859 painting was done on the grounds of Hyde Park, an estate owned by John Jacob Astor's grandson. 

Johann Hermann Carmiencke, "Hyde Park, New York" (1859) (via Brooklyn Museum)

Eventually the property was taken over by the Vanderbilt family, and is now a national historic landmark. An overlook on the grounds preserves Carmeiencke’s view north up the Hudson.

Hyde Park, New York (photograph by the author)

A guide to the complete Hudson River School Trail — which includes nine other Hudson Valley stops, as well as a pair of sites in New Hampshire and Massachusetts and some upcoming sites in Yosemite — can be found here. You can also pick up a booklet about the trail at Cole’s own home in Catskill, New York.  

Thomas Cole Historic House, Catskill, New York (photo by the author)

"Again the Reaper has visited the corral..." (all photographs by the author unless noted)

"If there is a hoss heaven, please, God, rest his soul." So concludes one of the rodeo animal epitaphs in the gardens of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. The 18 acres of the museum — formerly known as the Cowboy Hall of Fame — are leafy and calm, with sporadic statues of western scenes, accented by a monumental metal Buffalo Bill riding a rearing horse, his rifle aimed to the sky. Dotting this landscape are tombstones and memorials for great bulls, horses, and even a longhorn. 

The place doesn't announce itself as a cemetery, and you have to stop to read the monuments for Poker Chip the rope horse, Hells Angels the bucking bronc, and others to find out it's the final resting place of a small herd of animals. There's Midnight the "great bucking hoss" remembered with that epitaph above, and 5 Minutes to Midnight, another bucking bronco and "cowboy's pal." Quarter Horse Baby Doll Combs — a famed bulldogger, meaning a horse that would ride up to a steer so its cowboy could leap off and wrestle it by the horns — was originally buried at her owner's ranch in a huge funeral covered by Life magazine, and later reburied at the museum. There's also Abilene, or "Abi," a Texas Longhorn given to the museum in 1967 by an Oklahoma businessman. The 2,100-pound steer became the museum's mascot, lumbering through area parades, attending rodeos and community events, and greeting the public from a pen at the Cowboy Hall of Fame. According to his plaque: "Abilene's magnificent size and appearance made him a tremendous public relations ambassador." After he passed on in 1970, he was interred in the garden. 

Abilene the steer (via)

via Denver Post

Other animals are buried elsewhere and remembered with cenotaphs, some hanging from wooden signs, others embedded in big mounds of stone. They include the "Great Cow Pony" Baldy, buried in 1961 at the Jake McClure Arena in Lovington, New Mexico, and the famed bucking horse Tipperary buried in Buffalo, South Dakota (it seems no matter how many men they hurtled to the ground, cowboys have a soft spot for the untamed spirit of the bucking broncs). 

But the greatest of all, at least in legend, may be Tornado the bull. Weighing in at 1,500 pounds, the red and white bull was believed to be unrideable. He threw 220 competitors until December 1, 1967, at the Oklahoma City National Finals Rodeo, Freckles Brown went for an eight second ride on the cyclone of fur, hoof, and horns. Tornado later retired, dying at 15 years old in 1972, and he's now buried at the museum. As for Freckles, he's interred in Hugo, Oklahoma, in Mount Olivet Cemetery, alongside the showmen's rest there, with Tornado etched on his own grave. 

Freckles Brown riding Tornado (via Cowboys & Indians)

Memorial for Tornado the bull

Grave of Midnight the bucking bronco

Cenotaph for Steamboat, the bucking bronco & symbol of Wyoming

Detail of the cenotaph for Steamboat, the bucking bronco & symbol of Wyoming

Marker for Hells Angels — the "Great Bucking Horse"

Grave of Baby Doll Combs

Memorial for Poker Chip the rope horse

Cenotaph for Elijah the Pack Horse

Frederick Remington's "Coming Through the Rye" at the entrance to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum gardens

The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is at 1700 NE 63rd Street, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The chateau at Goussainville-Vieux Pays (all photographs by Opelia Holt)

Just outside the north of Paris, under the flight path of the Charles de Gaulle airport, are the ghostly remnants of a little French town — Goussainville-Vieux Pays. Walking through the streets I was struck by the post-apocalyptic atmosphere of it, the surrealist feeling of being in a town so totally deserted, but still so full of traces of human life.

Goussainville-Vieux Pays was once a postcard perfect town, but less than a year before CDG opened in 1974 a plane crashed into it, destroying several houses and killing six crew and eight locals. The destruction caused many of the townspeople to evacuate immediately, with others following over the course of the subsequent year as the sound traffic from the airport and sorrow for the devastation of their town became too much. Now only a few residents remain.

What is still there is a series of houses in various states of disrepair, which at times are hard to tell apart from the ones still occupied by the few stubborn residents. Overgrown yards with rusted gates and falling off shutters, peeling doors just asking to be opened. Some had obviously experienced fires, with whole floors fallen away, leaving only the skeleton of the building behind. Others were still full of the possessions departing residents were unable to take with them. In some houses, it seemed like only yesterday that they had been vacated, with writing desks still open and books spilling over the floor, and cellars full of (now empty) wine bottles. 

Over the years it seems squatters have moved in, as evident from the occasional mattress, the usual signs of graffiti tagging, as well as smashed glass bottles. Despite this, the town maintains a beautiful eeriness. This is most obvious in the chateau, now almost totally in ruin (see below). It is possible to stand on the edge of the ground floor and see the innards of the whole building, the basement and the upper floors.

While 40 years have passed since the plane crash, no attempt yet as been made to reclaim the land, though its proximity to Paris means that it is probably only a matter of time until it falls victim to renovation.

All photographs by Ophelia Holt. Find more of her explorations on her blog. 

Recently we interviewed Chandler O'Leary of the fantastic illustrated travel blog Drawn the Road Again. We are thrilled to be sharing a series of O'Leary's illustrations of roadside attractions, along with their place on Atlas Obscura, in a summer series. 

Salem Sue, illustrated by Chandler O'Leary

Lording over the farmland of North Dakota is Salem Sue — the world's largest Holstein cow. The city of New Salem constructed the 38-foot high, 50-foot long animal in 1974 as a tribute to the cows that had made their dairy farming great. Sketched by Chandler O'Leary on Drawn the Road, two humans are dwarfed in her majesty.

While there are many giant creatures looming over our world, Salem Sue is so beloved she has her own ballad. Sing along if you like:

Her presence shows that New Salem grows,
With milk-producers' yields;
We've got the cow, world's largest cow
That looks across our fields.

photograph by Nic McPhee

Follow more of Chandler O'Leary's travels through illustrations at Drawn the Road Again. Stay tuned for more illustrated roadside attractions on Atlas Obscura.

Transnistria. If the name draws a blank, then don’t worry – you’re not alone. This tiny sliver of land located along the Dniester River between Moldova and Ukraine is almost unanimously unrecognized. Even amongst the relatively few Westerners aware of its existence, Transnistria is best known as the time-locked non-nation where the Soviet Union forgot to die. Such preconceptions do a disservice, however, to what is in reality a fascinating, safe, and largely misunderstood region of Eastern Europe.

Transnistria's independence, contested as it may be, came by way of the War of Transnistria (1990-92). Under the Soviet regime, this region was a special industrial zone, and when the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldova morphed into today’s democratic Republic of Moldova, the Transnistrian province was loathe to relinquish its ties with Moscow.

The region was supposedly responsible for large-scale weapons manufacturing for the USSR, and Russia's continued military investment in Transnistria would appear to lend credence to such stories. It was Russian soldiers who ultimately drove the War of Transnistria into the uneasy ceasefire which has held since July of 1992. The Moldova-Transnistria border is patrolled by Russian tanks to this day, and, in the wake of the recent troubles in Ukraine, the Russian Federation upped its Transnistrian contingent, which now numbers at over 2,000 stationed troops.

Military parade on Transnistria's Independence Day (photograph by Darmon Richter)

A map of the Transnistrian region (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Soldiers parade outside popular local fast food joints (photograph by Darmon Richter)

But that’s politics. Transnistria features in the Western media rarely enough, and when a journalist does visit they’re usually chasing up a story about the oft-reported bribery and corruption, or simply gawping at the proliferation of Soviet symbolism in this small, unrecognized state. 

Such themes, however, are neither unique to Transnistria nor are they representative of the local culture and lifestyle. In the case of Soviet symbolism, one need only look to other post-USSR nations such as Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, to find similarly ominous icons of the past. 

The fuss made about corrupt government, about police bribes, and dubious accounting, generally seems to be leveled by those with no real experience of travel. One can’t help but wonder if these journalists have ever ventured further east than Germany; from the Balkans to the Baltic States, bribery and corruption are rife. In this respect, Transnistria is nothing new.

Having said that, in some ways it is. The government of Transnistria recently made an increased bid to welcome foreign tourism, backed by the introduction of an official "Anti-Corruption Minister." The potential punishments are steep for those who prey on visitors; tourists who demonstrate this knowledge, even just by flashing a number on the screen of their mobile phone, are usually able to get the better of border guards, police, or any other officials who persist in trying their luck for an illicit bribe. In this respect, travellers in Transnistria enjoy more security than those visiting many other Eastern European nations.

A bust of Lenin in a rural corner of Transnistria (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Inside an abandoned factory just outside Tiraspol (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Bleak architecture dating from the years of the USSR (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Some journalists have branded Transnistria as unfriendly, or unwelcoming; more often than not, this boils down to a linguistic matter. Russian is the de facto language of Transnistria, and while many of the nation’s younger generation have no problem communicating in English, the same can’t be assumed for everyone you'll meet. If you expect waiters, bus drivers, and shop keepers to cater to your needs in English, then you’re absolutely likely to perceive a certain degree of unfriendliness at times. Much like one would in France. Or in Japan. Or in fact, as anyone might experience if they attempted to tour Britain or much of the United States without a basic grasp of the English language. 

In Transnistria, learning the local language is considered by many to be a basic, common courtesy. You don’t have to be fluent, but as is the case when visiting Mother Russia herself, a few basic phrases and a little effort on your part will go a long way towards turning that frosty reception reported by some lazy travelers, into a warm and genuine welcome.

Another criticism often leveled at Transnistria is that there’s simply nothing to do, from international news media down to humble travel bloggers, there seems to be a resounding opinion that beyond the novelty of hammers, sickles, and great big busts of Lenin, Tiraspol – the Transnistrian capital – is a bit boring.

The central boulevard in Tiraspol, capital of Transnistria (photograph by Darmon Richter)

A marble Lenin beneath the flag of Transnistria (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Pobeda Park, in the heart of Tiraspol (photograph by Darmon Richter)

True, the city is a fairly standard Soviet affair: wide streets, whitewashed pavements, colorful propaganda posters. It could be anywhere from Pyongyang to Havana, with its clean and efficient appearance, its brutalist architecture, and militaristic culture. Aside from the annual Independence Day parade on September 2nd, it’s a fairly quiet place, and if you just came on a day trip to the capital then you might be forgiven for thinking there wasn’t much going on. It’s not until you make the effort to get outside of Tiraspol that you discover the true magic of Transnistria.

Transport is easy — hop on one of the taxi-buses (or marshrutkas) that stop along the capital’s main streets, and you can get to more or less anywhere in Transnistria for a handful of rubles. You won’t find the best attractions in guidebooks — Rough Guides, Lonely Planet, they barely touch the place — but travel here is rather a case of true exploration. Follow your nose. Talk to the locals.

At Bendery, a town on the Moldovan border, visitors can tour a 16th century Ottoman fortress, or dive into local history at the Bendery Military Museum, itself tucked away in the carriages of a decommissioned Soviet steam train.

The Bendery Military Museum (photograph by Darmon Richter)

A museum exhibit inside one of the train carriages (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Documents dating back to Transnistria's Soviet years (photograph by Darmon Richter)

The obelisk outside of Chitscani (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Then there’s Chitscani, a little way south of the capital. This important former battleground is presided over by a bold and dramatic obelisk, a stark Russian symbol that belies the complicated blend of identities in this rural town.

“Welcome to Moldova,” is the greeting you’ll get from priests at the Noul Neamt Monastery on the edge of town. The site was drastically downsized when the communists arrived, a priest explained, with numerous buildings annexed or destroyed. But unlike other Eastern European nations, where such conversations carry the implicit conclusion of, “and then the communists left,” here in Chitscani the orthodox faith remains in a state of siege.

In fact, the monks are so excited to receive guests from the West — tourists looking for genuine history and culture rather than simply to marvel at retrogressive political ephemera — that they'll often offer a full, personalized tour, from the top of the Noul Neamt bell tower, down to the crypt which houses the bones of the monastery’s founding fathers.

The Noul Neamt Monastery, seen from the top of its bell tower (photograph by Darmon Richter)

The monastery's interior is decorated with richly detailed orthodox murals (photograph by Darmon Richter)

An altarpiece in the Noul Neamt Monastery (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Transnistria is safe. It is friendly, welcoming, and filled to bursting with living human history. Further to that (and without wanting to get too drawn into the debate over official recognition), the culture here is notably different from Transnistria’s parent republic of Moldova.

The state’s close ties with Moscow have resulted in something that isn’t quite Moldovan — the language is different, the architecture, the customs, the politics, the identity overall far removed — but at the same time Transnistria offers too much parochial charm to be fairly considered the “Russian holiday resort” that so many fleeting visitors to the capital perceive.

A banner advertising the September 2nd Independence Day celebrations (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Independence Day means military parades, followed by barbecues in the park (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Transnistrian fast food — barbecued meat with lashings of vodka (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Transnistria is also notably wealthier than either its neighboring Moldova, or Ukraine. The roads are better and cleaner, and the streets are lined with stores that sell tablets and professional cameras. Plenty of journalists speculate about where exactly that money comes from: arms manufacturing being a popular theory in the West, where many spectators view this unrecognized nation as a soulless Russian puppet, or a front for money laundering on a national scale.

The Transnistrian people themselves are real, though. Ask them about politics and they’ll often shrug, dismissing such talk in favor of the very obvious comforts, culture, and rich history that surrounds them. They have everything they need. Most prefer to enjoy their lives, and not to question politics.

If a Western outsider can manage to do the same then — to visit Transnistria with an open mind, and without the baggage of one’s own political or journalistic agenda — the result is one of stumbling across an uncharted and wholly captivating land, a uniquely unexplored time capsule tucked away in the rolling hills of Eastern Europe.

Children play on a decommissioned tank in the heart of Tiraspol (photograph by Darmon Richter)

The Noul Neamt Monastery at Chitscani (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Taking a walk through the Transnistrian countryside (photograph by Darmon Richter)

A statue of Lenin in the capital (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Outdoor art class in a city-center park (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Sunset over Tiraspol (photograph by Darmon Richter) 

Darmon Richter is a freelance writer, photographer, and urban explorer. You can follow his adventures at The Bohemian Blog, or for regular updates, follow The Bohemian Blog on Facebook.

A water tower on the west side of Humberstone, Chile (all photographs by the author)

Northern Chile is dotted with ghost towns abandoned long ago, which are slowly falling to pieces in the harsh Atacama desert. These towns were built around a mining industry that produced a product called Saltpeter (sodium nitrate), which was an important part of fertilizer production from the late 1800s.

The Saltpeter works and the towns constructed around them became obsolete after two German scientists synthesized ammonia during the late 1920s, which meant fertilizers could be produced more efficiently and at a fraction of the cost. Within 30 years, most of the towns and Saltpeter works had been all but abandoned.

It's now possible to explore all but one of these ghost towns, the exception being Chacabuco, which was used as concentration camp during Augusto Pinochet's regime and is now surrounded by lost land mines.

Humberstone was the largest of the nitrate towns. It is easily accessible, making it a perfect day trip from the nearby costal city of Iquique. Humberstone (and the nearby Santa Laura Saltpeter Works) are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites and require a small entry fee at the gate. However, once inside you are free to explore the ghost town and factories almost completely unrestricted.

The gates to Humberstone

Once you pay your fee and receive a map of Humberstone, the first few rows of old houses have been partly restored and turned into a museum, which explains the functions of certain parts of the town, as well as displaying artifacts left behind by the residents. The citizens of Humberstone had to be quite resourceful living in the isolated and harsh conditions of the Atacama Desert, and the museum does a good job of demonstrating how people made do and recycled what they had.

Children’s toys made from found & recycled parts left behind at Humberstone, including wire guns, slingshots, tin can trains, & “hoop & wheel” toys

How a typical child’s bedroom in Humberstone would have looked

A collection of cooking stoves & utensils left behind by Humberstone's residents

More items left behind by Humberstone residents

If you head to the very east of town, you will find hundreds of wall-to-wall houses where the workers and their families used to live (shown at the top of this post).

Looking down the rows of houses where the workers lived. Fun fact: A small earthquake struck while I was exploring Humberstone around this point. It was quite an eerie experience.

Some cartoon characters painted inside one of the bedrooms, presumably a child's room

A typical kitchen inside one of the workers houses

Moving back towards the center of town, you will find all of the town's main facilities, including the theatre, supermarket, hospital, school, church, main square, market, hotel, train station, mechanics, and sports stadium, which are all open and free to explore. Strangely, behind the church you can also find a small museum dedicated to the different doors and windows around Humberstone.

The local swimming pool, installed late in Humberstone's life

The pool is made from iron with pot rivets salvaged from old factory machinery. Living in the desert, the residents had to be resourceful at Humberstone.

The town theatre. The inside of this building has been restored to working order, as it is occasionally used for events.

The outdoor basketball court, including the grandstands & changing rooms

The exterior walls of the school are slowly crumbling away, leaving these wooden wall slats behind

One of a number of classrooms at the school in Humberstone

A room inside the town hospital

This small gazebo sits in the centre of the towns park which was probably once surrounded by green grass

Once you pass through the town's main amenities in the center heading west, you will come across where the more important residents of Humberstone lived, including including the mayor and the owner of the Saltpeter mines.

One of the houses on the west side of town. Take note of the two black water pots beside the front gate. They are made out of recycled car tires, another example of Humberstone resourcefulness

The bathroom of the house pictured above, still complete with checkerboard lino on the floor

Another of the nicer, larger houses on the west side of town. A water trough made from recycled machinery parts sits out front.

The town was here for one reason, which was to mine the saltpeter. Heading northwest from the town, you won't be able to miss the huge sheds and towering cast iron chimney of the Humberstone processing facility, just a stone's throw away from the actual town. Beside the work area, you will also see a ridge which gives you a great lookout point to the town and the mines in all their glory.

The Saltpeter Mine on the edge of Humberstone, as seen from the lookout point on the ridge beside it. In the far distance, you can just make out the silhouette of the Santa Laura Saltpeter Works, too.

One of the giant machines left behind in the industrial area of Humberstone, possibly part of a small power plant which likely provided electricity to the mine & the town.

Old trains & train parts sit abandoned in the industrial, as well as the residential, parts of town. These trains were paramount in transport of both the people & products of Humberstone.

One of the many factories filled with industrial parts & machinery, which has sat eerily silent for more than 30 years, with unrepaired motors, tractors, cars & parts slowly rusting away.

It almost seems as if the workers just put their tools down & left halfway through the day

Debris lays strewn all over the town, some of it just scrap, but some of it which gives you more of a glimpse into the lives of Humberstone's residents.

Find more of Chris Staring's photography at Skaremedia. 

Death masks on display at One Street Museum in Kiev (courtesy the museum)

As the Russian “stealth war" on Ukraine steps out of the shadows and fighters on both sides of the conflict are killed on an increasing basis, a collector in Kiev has decided to launch a new exhibition examining the the image of death itself.

Calling the exhibit Ukrainian Pantheon, Dmitry Shlyonsky will be exhibiting some of his collection of 260 death masks at the One Street Museum in Kiev in celebration of the 23rd anniversary of Ukrainian independence. Death masks, which are made using wet plaster stripes laid over the face of the recently deceased, were used to capture the sculptural images of the dead for posterity and were often cast from the faces of great men and women, including Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon, Nietzsche, and many others.

Death masks on display at the Museum of Waxes in Prague (photograph by Curious Expeditions)

Collected over the last 12 years into what is thought to be the single largest collection of death masks in the world, the exhibition in Kiev will feature Ukrainian nationals, including Stepan Bandera, a famous anti-Soviet fighter, and Symon Petliura, who fought against Russia for Ukrainian independence after the Russian Revolution.

For Shlyonsky, a historian of death masks, these artifacts have never been more relevant. Quoted in the Daily Beast, Shlyonsky said: “We are worried about our independence, we are deeply concerned.” But despite being used to celebrate the history of Ukrainian independence the death masks also form a cultural tie that Russia and Ukraine share, going back to the desk mask of Peter the Great, and lasting well into the 20th century, with a rumored death mask of Boris Yeltsin.  

Wax death masks Museum of Waxes in Prague (photograph by Curious Expeditions)

In 2013, a collection of 13 of Russian death masks, including Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, and Vladimir Lenin went on display in the tunnels below Lenin’s former estate, as part of a Russian exhibition called Masks Shock. One space was left open at the end of the display. When asked, head researcher Natalia Mushits told reporters: “It's for Putin.”

Ukrainians eagerly await the addition.

*Hat Tip to the Daily Beast. Another excellent death mask collection can be seen at the Laurence Hutton Collection of Life and Death Masks at Princeton University. 

Museum of Waxes in Prague (photograph by Curious Expeditions)

Mary, Queen of Scots, 1542-1587 death mask on plaque, from effigy on tomb (courtesy Princeton University)

Life mask of Benjamin Franklin (courtesy Princeton University)

Newton, Isaac, Sir, 1642-1727 (courtesy Princeton University)

Pancho Villa's Death Mask (photograph by Karen Neoh)

 
Death mask of an executed murderer at the Kriminalmuseum (Criminal Museum) in Vienna, Austria (photograph by Curious Expeditions)

Buzludzha, Bulgaria (all photographs by Rebecca Litchfield)

Out in the former Soviet Union, the Iron Curtain still hangs in tatters. Photographer Rebecca Litchfield journeyed through freezing winds and sometimes high security to document these abandoned remains. From Ukraine, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Russia, and places in between, she sought out the ruins of bombastic optimism for a utopian future and military paranoia. In a new book called Soviet Ghosts, released this month by Carpet Bombing Culture, these photographs are compiled into one haunting vision of a lost empire. Litchfield answered a few of our questions about the book and shared some of its incredible images below. 

It's not easy to get to these Soviet ruins, and you experienced some incredible hazards like radiation exposure, arrest, interrogation. What drew you there?

I love the challenge to get to places. It takes many hours of preparation, lots of driving, and getting up before sunrise, and of course there are the dangers. But it's very exciting to see these places and witness something that not a lot people would see normally. It's amazing to capture these images so I can show them to people who would have never have imagined these places could have existed. You need to be careful all the time, but for me it is worth it.

How did you find these places that are off most people's radar?

It takes a lot of research; Google is my best friend. It's all about searching different areas all around the world for derelict and abandoned places. A lot of detective work is required, and also word of mouth from people that have visited previously.

Is there something about Soviet ruins that you find more captivating than other abandoned places?

I was drawn to the ruins left from the Soviet Union, because it is an era in time that has now passed, and I feel it is important to capture these places before they are completely gone, like capturing a moment in history that soon will pass. 

Are you continuing to explore Soviet ruins, or has the experience led you to another subject?

I will continue to capture ruins all over the world for the indefinite future, also I am embarking on a PhD on the photographing of "Dark Tourist" sites around the world, so will spend a lot of time visiting and capturing these locations over the next three years.

Soviet Steam Train, Hungary

Beelitz, Germany

Soviet Friendship Monument in Bulgaria

Soviet Submarine, UK

Tuberculosis Hospital, Russia

Technical College, Russia

Sanatorium, Russia

Skruda, Latvia

Krampnitz, Germany

Soviet Ghosts by Rebecca Litchfield is available now from Carpet Bombing Culture. 

Rascal shoos off some native species. (via Idea Wiki) 

First introduced in the 1963 book, Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era, the impish little trash-eater known as Rascal was a hit from the start. The book, a memoir of author Sterling North’s childhood experience in which he adopted a baby raccoon for a year, was a hit with the youth of the era. It was quickly made into a live-action film by Disney, which depicted Sterling’s adventures with a comedic playfulness that was not quite so apparent in the book. While both of these incarnations met with popular success, it was not until Rascal hit Japanese audiences that his star really rose, for better or worse.

In January of 1977, the Nippon Animation Company released Rascal the Raccoon (Araiguma Rasukaru), a 52-episode anime cartoon series that returned the story to its more dramatic, bucolic roots (and also featured early work by animation pioneer Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli cofounder!). The series aired all year long, and the ongoing adventures of Sterling and Rascal were a massive hit among the Japanese children who instantly took to the story of a young boy and his ever-present animal sidekick, foreshadowing the popularity of such franchises as Pokemon which would take the country by storm decades later.

The Japanese title card (via Wikimedia)

The show proved so popular that Japanese families began importing pet raccoons from their native North America at an alarming rate. For years after the cartoon’s 1977 release, at least 1,500 raccoons a month were hitting Japanese shores so that fans of the show could act out Sterling’s adventures along with him. If only they had finished the series first.

As Sterling discovers at the end of his tale, raccoons are wild animals that make terrible pets. In the end, Sterling is forced to release Rascal into the wilds from whence he came. Back in the real world, many of these new raccoon owners were learning the same lesson Sterling had, as their imported pets began getting into everything, damaging homes and property, and generally being a horrible five-fingered menace. Taking a cue from their favorite show, many families simply released their raccoons into the wild. As resourceful garbage hounds, the newly introduced species had no trouble gaining a foothold on the Japanese mainland.

Your friend to the end. (photograph by Alan Vernon)

Eventually, the Japanese government put a ban on importing the animals, but it was too late, the Curse of Rascal had taken hold. As of 2004, the imported raccoons and their descendants could be found on 42 of the country’s 47 prefectures. Today, they are seen as an invasive menace who destroy crops, and are one of the leading causes of damage done to historic temples. They are known to steal fish and fruit from vendors and worse, are beginning to push out a number of native species. All in all, the little bandits are no longer as cute as they once were.

“Unable to dissolve his marriage, he decided to dissolve his wife.
— Clyde Snow, "The Stories Bones Tell"

Adolph & Louise Luetgert (courtesy Alchemy of Bones)

On Diversey and Hermitage Avenue in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood is an industrial building that was converted to condominiums in the 1990s. Though this building is nondescript today, it was the site of a grisly murder at the end of the 19th century.

Adolph Luetgert was a tanner and butcher who moved from Germany in the early 1870s. Shortly after his first wife died, Luetgert married Louise Bicknese in 1878, a woman who was ten years his junior. On their wedding day, he gave Louise a gold ring inscribed with her new initials, L.L.

Luetgert opened a small sausage company in 1879 that became successful. In 1897, he opened the A.L. Sausage & Packing Company in a five-story plant on the southwest corner of Diversey and Hermitage. Next door to the sausage works, Luetgert built a three-story family home for Louise and their two sons, Elmer and Louis.

A picture of the A.L. Sausage & Packing Company featured inside a company paperweight (courtesy Alchemy of Bones)

Unfortunately, Adolph and Louise’s marriage was not a happy one, and the world was about to find out what kind of monster lay inside Adolph Luetgert.

Adolph and Louise went on a walk on the evening of May 1, 1897 — this was the last time anyone saw Louise alive. On May 7th, Adolph reported his wife missing, but her family suspected foul play. Police questioned relatives and friends and searched the city for Louise Luetgert or her remains.

During a search of Luetgert’s factory on May 15th, a watchman suggested they look in a steam vat in the cellar that was used to dip sausages. The police looked inside, and found that the vat was filled halfway with a putrid-smelling, reddish-brown liquid. When the police pulled a plug near the bottom of the vat, on the outside, the slimy liquid and small pieces of bone fell out. Inside the cauldron, police found a gold ring with L.L. engraved on the inside. Near the vat, investigators discovered a strand of hair, pieces of clothing, and half of a false tooth.

After police questioned some employees, investigators learned Luetgert had workers dump the ashes from the smokehouse. When they examined the areas the factory workers indicated, investigators found more bone and pieces of burned corset steel.

Luetgert was arrested shortly after these discoveries, and was tried for Louise’s murder. The trial became a media sensation that drew reporters from thousands of miles away.

During the trial, friends and relatives of the Luetgert family testified that Adolph physically abused and cheated on Louise. A smokehouse helper also testified that Luetgert ordered 378 pounds of potash on March 11th, and ordered employees to dump the chemical in the steam vat with water on April 24th. The same worker also stated that on Saturday, May 1st, the day Louise disappeared, Luetgert turned on the steam line to the cauldron and boiled the mixture. The following Sunday and Monday, factory workers unwittingly helped Luetgert clean up the rancid liquid that boiled over from the vat, which was either buried around the factory or burned in the smokehouse.

Adolph’s defense was that his wife went insane and ran away, the potash was used to make soap to clean the factory, and the bones found in the factory were animal. Without a body it would be difficult to confirm that Louise was dead. So the prosecution had to prove that the potash mixture could have been used to dispose of Louise’s body and the remains found in the vat could belong to her.

The prosecution determined that the potash mixture could dissolve a human body with a demonstration. With a real human cadaver and a cauldron filled with the potash formula Luetgert allegedly used, the prosecution was able to liquify the cadaver and got the same reddish-brown fluid. The potash would have leached the calcium from Louise’s bones and liquefied the rest of her body.

George Dorsey, anthropologist and curator of the Field Museum, and some of his colleagues, analyzed bone fragments recovered from the A.L. Sausage & Packing Company. Dorsey testified that the pebble-sized pieces of bone belonged to a human female.

The Luetgert murder trial was one of the first ones in which an anthropologist was called to testify as an expert witness. Today forensic anthropologists doubt that Dorsey could have determined whether or not the tiny pieces of bone were human, much less that they belonged to a female. Though the jury and the reporters at the trial thought Dorsey’s testimony was convincing, it was the circumstantial evidence that swayed the jury.

The Luetgert marital discord and the presence of Louise’s wedding ring in the vat were damning. And Luetgert’s defense of using 378 pounds of potash to make soap to clean the factory was ridiculous, because his mixture would have made about 2,000 pounds of soap. This amount would have been enough to clean the factory a few times over, and was more expensive than buying the soap over the counter.

Luetgert was eventually found guilty, and was sent to Joliet State Penitentiary. He died on July 7, 1899, but maintained his innocence throughout his short incarceration.

The factory today, now converted to condos (via Chicago Crime Scenes)

Bricked up basement window to where the sausage vat was located (via Chicago Crime Scenes)

There were a few urban legends that spread after the trial. The most gruesome was that Luetgert ground Louise’s body into sausage and sold it to his customers. But the plant was not manufacturing sausage at the time of the murder, so the presence of her body in the factory had nothing to do with sausage-making or accidental cannibalism. Despite this, the rumor was enough to cause sausage sales to plummet during the investigation and murder trial.

Eventually the neighborhood kids recited a rhyme about the gory tale:

Old man Luetgert made sausage out of his wife!
He turned on the steam,
His wife began to scream,
There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight!

There were also stories that the ghost of Louise Luetgert haunted the factory. A few years after the trial, a watchman at the factory believed he saw Louise’s apparition. Two detectives were sent to investigate this phenomenon when the watchman reported his paranormal experience to the police. The detectives allegedly witnessed mysterious lights, and Louise’s ghost near the vat where her body was liquefied. There don't seem to be any recent experiences at the condos that are there now.

In 1907, the Luetgert home was moved to Diversey Boulevard near Paulina, but no paranormal experiences have been reported.

For more fascinating stories of forensic anthropology visit Dolly Stolze's Strange Remains, where a version of this article also appeared. 

Morbid Mondays highlight macabre stories from around the world and through time, indulging in our morbid curiosity for stories from history's darkest corners. Read more Morbid Mondays>

References:

The sausage vat murder. (2014). Retrieved on August 31, 2014 from: http://www.domu.com/chicago/history-map/the-sausage-vat-murder

Joyce, C. and Stover, E. (1991). Witnesses from the grave: The stories bones tell. Boston, MA: Ballantine Books.

Loerzel, R. (2003). Alchemy of bones: Myths debunked. Retrieved on August 31, 2014 from: http://www.alchemyofbones.com/myths.htm

Loerzel, R. (2003). Alchemy of bones: Adolph Louis Luetgert. Retrieved on August 31, 2014 from: http://www.alchemyofbones.com/who/luetgertfamily/adolph.htm

Loerzel, R. (2011). In search of Mrs. Luetgert’s ghost. Retrieved on August 31, 2014 from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-loerzel/in-search-of-mrs-luetgert_b_1063967.html

Maples, W.R. and Browning, M. (1995). Dead men do tell tales. New York, New York: Broadway Publishing.

An Agave americana "Century Plant" in post-bloom (photograph by David Fulmer)

People tend to throw the phrase "once in a lifetime" around pretty liberally, applying it to mattress sales, kisses, and blockbuster movies. However, there are events that are truly rare enough to occur once in a lifetime, depending of course on how long one lives, and when one happens to life. Some, like Halley’s Comet, occur predictably, while other rare phenomena happen without much warning at all.

Rare Bloomers

Separate from the its tequila-giving cousin, the Agave americana, or maguey, blooms so rarely that it’s been given the nickname "Century Plant." In truth, the plant takes at least 10 years to bloom in warm climates, but in colder climates only blooms every 80 years or so, and can often create a whimsical news event when it does. It’s lately become a popular decorative plant, though those patio gardeners in the northern climates can expect to wait quite a few decades before they see its eight-foot stalks and bright yellow flowers.

Agave americana in bloom, Porto Covo, Portugal (photograph by Alvesgaspar/Wikimedia)

Puya raimondii, a cactus-like plant native to the Andes, blooms only every 80 to 150 years, and on top of that is one of the rarest plants in the world. Known as the Queen of the Andes, it only grows wild in elevations above 12,000 feet, and is notoriously difficult to cultivate outside its native habitat. But when it does, stalks rise up to 26 feet, and produce approximately 8,000 flowers. A cultivated Puya raimondii bloomed at the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens in June of this year, and drew thousands of visitors.

Puya raimondii post-bloom (photograph by Dtarazona/Wikimedia)

Even more spectacularly rare is the Tahina spectabilis, or Tahina Palm. The endangered tree was only discovered in 2007, previously mistaken for more common species since it only distinguishes itself when it bursts forth with hundreds of flowers. And this only happens when the tree is between 30 to 100 years old. Furthermore, it grows in parts of Madagascar so remote no one had ever recorded them. When a man and his family happened upon the mysterious tree in bloom, he took a photograph and sent it off for identification. To his and everyone else’s shock, he had discovered a new species.

Tahina spectabilis (photograph by John Dransfield)

Normally, when one of these rare bloomers shows its colors, it's a cause for celebration. Not so with Melocanna baccifera, which thrives in parts of India and Myanmar. A form of bamboo that flowers every 44 to 48 years, the thousands of seeds it produces attract black rats. Not just a few rats either; this once-in-a-lifetime event is so unpleasant, it carries the name Mautam (Bamboo Death) because of the thousands upon thousands of black rats who arrive to feast on the flowering bamboo, and devour local grain stores, leaving the place in famine. Worse, the seeds may even promote rat fertility.

Flowering bamboo means rodent trouble is coming (photograph by Joi Ito)

Whether it happens at 30, 10, or 100 years, all the plants here bloom once in their own lifetime. They all then die.

Astronomical Events

The most famous comet, Halley’s Comet, appears in the sky every 75 years, making it possible to see it twice in a lifetime if you live to an advanced age. Mark Twain famously said he “came in” with the comet in 1835, and planned to go out when it returned. He died one day after it reappeared in the sky in 1910.

When the comet came around again, in 1986, Earth had reached the space age. In addition to many parties and celebrations (which were great for telescope sales), this was the first time spacecraft could be sent to study and photograph the comet. When it returns in 2061, one expects technology will have advanced to unlock even more secrets.

Halley's Comet on the Bayeux Tapestry (via Myrabella/Wikimedia)

Halley's Comet in 1986 (photograph by NASA/W. Liller) 

Meanwhile, back in the 1990s, humans were able to observe the spectacular Hale-Bopp comet’s visit to earth, which lasted a spectacular 19 months. Those who were lucky enough to see the comet, which was visible with the naked eye even in big, light polluted cities, experienced a true once-in-lifetime event that involved copious media stories, plenty of parties, and a UFO cult’s mass suicide. It won’t return to earth for another 2,392 years. Meanwhile, a comet know as Siding Spring is expected to get very close to Mars in October of this year. So close, it might, in a very unlikely scenario, collide with the Red Planet and create a spectacular Martian meteor shower that could be observed from Earth with binoculars.

Comet Hale-Bopp, viewed from Death Valley (photograph by Mkfairdpm/Wikimedia)

Eclipses are actually pretty common, when you factor in partial, annular, and lunar total eclipses, but the total solar eclipse remains rare. Whether or not a person can see one depends not only on time, but geography and even local weather. The last big total solar eclipse occurred in 2012 and was visible to people in Asia. One visible in Europe and North American will happen in 2015. However, if want to observe a super long total solar eclipse lasting seven rather than five minutes, you’re out of luck, since that won’t happen again until 2150.

A sunset eclipse seen from Huntington Beach, California, in 2012 (photograph by jimnista/Flickr user)

One in a lifetime astronomical events aren’t limited to eclipses and comets. In 2012, a rare Venus transit occurred as the planet, appearing tiny, black and disc-like, passed across the sun. The next time sky gazers can catch a Venus transit is in 2117. Meanwhile, in September of 2040, there will be a rare alignment of the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. 

Wild Weather Events

There are certain weather events that occur so rarely, a person would be lucky to see them once in a lifetime. The innocuous-sounding non-aquatic rainfall is a terrifying staple of apocalyptic mythology. Simply put, it rains animals, usually fish or frogs. Sometimes the animals hit the ground while alive, other times they are frozen. According to eyewitnesses, it recently rained frogs in Hungary and fish in India and the Philippines, and spine chilling spiders in Brazil. The town of Yoro, Honduras, allegedly experiences fish rain yearly, in an event known as Lluvia de Pesces. Most theorize the animal rains are caused by waterspouts or tornados picking up and dropping the unfortunate creatures.

Rain of snakes, as depicted in a Renaissance illustration (via NOAA Photo Library)

Coronations

While most phenomena here are naturally occurring, humans create once-in-a-lifetime events, such as coronations. In 1953, millions turned out to see the 25-year-old Queen of Great Britain and the Commonwealth Countries be crowned. Elizabeth II’s coronation was the first to be televised and various celebrations were held across the commonwealth. And she remains on the throne, but many who were not yet born when she was crowned will likely see her son the Prince of Wales take the position, presumably with much pomp and circumstance.

Emperor Hirohito in a 1929 photograph (via Nationaal Archief)

In Japan, the current Emperor was enthroned in 1990 and is part of the longest continuing hereditary line of rulers in the work, unbroken since 660 BCE. Popes, while not hereditary monarchs, are still absolute rulers for life (most of the time anyway). Many young people had only known Pope John Paul II as the pontiff when he passed away in 2005. When Pope Benedict XVI was chosen to succeed him, it was shocking when he retired from the job in 2013. Seeing a pope chosen when the other was still living was truly once in a lifetime.

Recently we interviewed Chandler O'Leary of the fantastic illustrated travel blog Drawn the Road Again. We are thrilled to be sharing a series of O'Leary's illustrations of roadside attractions, along with their place on Atlas Obscura, in a summer series. 

Welcome to Roswell (illustration by Chandler O'Leary)

Journeying through Roswell, New Mexico, you'll find the International UFO Museum and Research Center which boasts mysterious spacecraft models and autopsy reports, and, well, a UFO-themed McDonald's (if you want to actually take a look at Area 51, the closest you can get is Tikaboo Peak in Nevada). But the truth out there isn't quite as promisingly kitschy as the myth, as Chandler O'Leary found and illustrated for Drawn the Road Again. As she writes:

There weren’t alien tchotchkes everywhere, nor were we surrounded by roadside attractions. All we really found was a museum (closed that day), a couple of sparse souvenir shops, and a handful of scattered E.T. effigies — so few, in fact, that I couldn’t even fill one whole spread in my sketchbook. And that makes me sad, because just think of the things Roswell could learn from somewhere like Wall Drug!

However, O'Leary has discovered some delightful alien roadside attractions elsewhere, such as the two below, and you can find more at her site. And for more on searching for alien life,  check out our Atlas Obscura Guide to First Contact.

Alien-themed BBQ restaurant in North Dakota (illustration by Chandler O'Leary)

UFO-shaped park shelter in Everett, Washington (illustration by Chandler O'Leary)

International UFO Museum & Research Center in Roswell (photograph by Stephen Hanafin)

We also recommend:

ÄNGELHOLM UFO MEMORIAL, Sweden
A memorial to a Swedish hockey player's encounter with aliens

EMILCIN UFO MEMORIAL, Poland
Commemorating the most famous abduction case in Polish history

WORLD'S FIRST UFO LANDING PAD, Saint Paul, Canada
A Canadian centennial project designed to gather information about UFOs

UFO WATCHTOWER, Crestone, Colorado
A UFO themed campground with self-built "energy vortexes, UFO themed weddings, & magic bushes"

EXETER UFO FESTIVAL, Exeter, New Hampshire
Annual celebration commemorating the 1965 sighting of strange lights in the town

UFO WELCOME CENTER, Bowman, South Carolina
This set of rickety spaceships is prepared to give alien travelers a place to relax

Follow more of Chandler O'Leary's travels through illustrations at Drawn the Road Again. Stay tuned for more illustrated roadside attractions on Atlas Obscura, or revisit Salem Sue and Wall Drug.

Mount Elbrus (photograph by Kuster & Wildhaber Photography)

In the early 1980s, Richard Bass, an oil and gas magnate from Tulsa, Oklahoma, set for himself a mountaineering challenge. He wanted to ascend the highest point on each of the seven continents. On April 30, 1985, he completed this challenge, becoming the then oldest person at age 64 to climb Mount Everest. He wrote about his adventures in the book Seven Summits.

With the somewhat nebulous definition of what a continent is, some said that Bass’s relatively simple walk up to the highest point in the Australian mainland isn’t the highest point on the continent at all, since the island of New Guinea is on the same tectonic plate and has a much higher and tougher mountain to even gain access to, let alone climb. Thus, there are two versions of the list: the Bass list using mainland Australia, and the Messner list named after Reinhold Messner, one of the most prolific climbers in history, who suggested the New Guinea peak for the defined continent of Oceania.

Australia (Bass)
Mount Kosciuszko
2,228 meters / 7,310 feet

In the Great Dividing Range near the border between New South Wales and Victoria, summiting Mount Kosciuszko, or “Kozzy,” can be a simple 8 km (5 mile) hike from the ski resort in Charlotte Pass, Australia’s highest permanent settlement and coldest location. Until 1977, this trail used to be a road to a parking lot at Rawson Pass for climbers to park their cars, but now only hikers and cyclists can use the former road. From June through October, the simple hike on this trail becomes a simple snow climb.

Summit of Mt Kosciuszko (photograph by Cimexus/Wikimedia)

Oceania (Messner)
Puncak Jaya aka Carstensz Pyramid
4,884 meters / 16,023 feet

The climb up Puncak Jaya in the Papua province of Indonesia is much different than Kozzy. Political instability and a dense jungle can keep climbers from even approaching it. The Indonesian government closed access to it from 1995 to 2005, but deals have been made with adventure tour companies for access. The five-day hike from the town of Timika through the jungle to the base camp can be a slog through hard rain, and the climb is a long scramble with technical rock climbs in parts.

Puncak Jaya (photograph by Alfindra Primaldhi)

Antarctica
Mount Vinson
4,892 meters / 16,050 feet

The Sentinel Range is well south of the Antarctic Peninsula, the thin stretch of land that reaches toward Tierra del Fuego. Mount Vinson, the highest point of the vast Vinson Massif, is not a technically difficult climb, but merely traveling in Antarctica is a dangerous proposition, not to mention the incredible cold and effects of altitude on the ascent. Then there is the cost, as an expedition to climb Mount Vinson can cost nearly $40,000 per person.

Summit of Vinson Massif, Antarctic (photograph by Victor L. Vescov)

Europe
Mount Elbrus
5,642 meters / 18,510 feet

An inactive, ancient volcano, Mount Elbrus rises over Europe from the Caucasus Mountains in Russia near the Georgian border. This mountain is a technically easy snow and glacier climb, but high winds and heavy snow can occur at any time. The standard route starts at “the Barrels,” an old set of barracks that now service enthusiastic and weary climbers. No mention of the Barrels is complete without a few words about “the nastiest outhouse in the world,” a title given to the Barrels’ privies by Outside magazine in 1993.

Mount Elbrus (photograph by JukoFF/Wikimedia)

In the second part of this Seven Summits series, some familiar mountains will take their place as the highest point of their continents, and one climber will ask that even though this list is the highest mountains on their continents, is it the most challenging mountaineering list?

The author would like to thank the authors at summitpost.org for the standard route descriptions. For more on scaling the world's summits, check out "The Summit Scaling Subculture of Highpointing."

photograph by Darmon Richter

In the heart of Europe’s Balkan Mountains, there exists a tense naming dispute between nations, a 20-year political battle, which has its roots in a 2,800-year history. We’re talking about Macedonia – the small Eastern European country bordered by Bulgaria to the east, Greece to the south, Albania in the west, and to the north, both Serbia and Kosovo. Well, just Serbia in the north, if you’re from Spain, Greece, China, Brazil, or one of the 80 or so other countries that refuse to accept Kosovo’s independence.

In terms of borders and politics, it might be fair to say that the Balkans are a mess.

The Ottoman Empire laid claim to these lands for centuries, and only once they were finally vanquished were the local populations able to piece back together their former cultures and identities, a process which escalated into fierce border debates around the time of the First and Second Balkan Wars.

The First World War kicked off here in the Balkans too, with the assassination of Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Bosnia. When the dust settled in 1918, these lands were united as Yugoslavia, only to be sent into chaos once more in 1941, as Yugoslavia fell under the full force of Hitler’s blitzkrieg.

There are approximately 40,000 muslims in modern-day Macedonia, Islam having arrived by way of the Ottomans (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Orthodox Christianity remains the dominant faith however, with more than two million followers (photograph by Darmon Richter)

In 1945, Josip Broz Tito would reunite the Balkans once again. Partisan forces overthrew their fascist masters in the course of a bloody civil war, following which Yugoslavia would rise again, this time under a red flag, as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Tito famously pitted Yugoslavia’s nation-states against their neighbors, so that by the time Yugoslavia faced its eventual dissolution in the 1990s, the process was marked by a series of messy splits, land grabs, and wars, which between them would dominate the news for most of a decade.

The Republic of Macedonia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, and in 1993 it became a member of the United Nations, though not without complications. The problem was, there was already a Macedonia in the UN — the Greek region of Macedonia — and at Greece’s behest this new republic was only permitted to enter the United Nations under the provisional title of fYROM, or “former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.”

Hydrometeorological building in Skopje (photograph by Darmon Richter)

More Yugoslav-brutalist architecture in Skopje, this time, the post office (photograph by Darmon Richter)

A Macedonian flag flies from Skopje's Television Center (photograph by Darmon Richter)

The contemporary Greek position is this: Macedonia, as they perceive it, is a Greek territory and a name that is integral to Greek history and heritage. They don’t want to share Greek history with their Slavic neighbors in the north, but moreover, Athens fears that the Republic of Macedonia, so-named, would stand a better chance of stealing territories from the region of Greek Macedonia.

In addition to calling for the provisional “former Yugoslav Republic of” prefix in relation to Macedonia’s UN membership (which was declared a temporary solution at the time, but remains unresolved 15 years later), Athens has successfully blocked its neighbor from gaining membership to either NATO or the EU, until such a time that the dispute reaches a satisfactory conclusion.

Several solutions have been suggested to the problem: names such as “Northern Macedonia,” or “Republika Makedonija-Skopje” (the latter having been suggested in 2005, but rejected almost immediately by the government in Skopje). Greece won’t stand for the idea of different names being used in different countries, either — but rather, they desire a solution that is universally adopted.

Kale Fortress in Skopje, a former Byzantine stronghold (photograph by Darmon Richter)

A contemporary water fountain in the heavily redeveloped center of Skopje (photograph by Darmon Richter)

The spat between Greece and the (RO / fYRO) Macedonia is as complex as it is heated, and in order to better understand the historical background to the debate, there are three Macedonias that one need consider: the (former Yugoslav) Republic of Macedonia, the Greek region of Macedonia, and the ancient Macedon Kingdom.

Histories place the foundation of the Macedon Kingdom at some time around the 7th or 8th century BC. For a brief period, it rose to become the world’s most powerful state, most notably under the leadership of King Alexander III of Macedon — known commonly as Alexander the Great.

Geographically, that ancient kingdom now lays spread over the borders of Greek Macedonia and the Republic of Macedonia. As a result, both Skopje and Athens have an inclination to lay claim to the spoils of Macedon heritage, a debate which grows particularly heated in the case of Alexander himself, who is by turns described as Greek or Macedonian depending on who you ask (or rather, more precisely, as Macedonian or Greek-Macedonian).

In Nestos, Greek Macedonia, there stands an airport named after Alexander the Great. When in 2006 the Republic of Macedonia announced plans to dedicate Skopje Airport likewise to Alexander, it threw more fuel on an already roaring fire. Things only grew worse in 2011, when a 22-meter statue appeared in the heart of Skopje’s Macedonia Square depicting an unnamed warrior king on horseback. Skopje has never given the statue an official name, but Athens took the hint all the same.

Macedonia Square, featuring the unnamed warrior king on horseback (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Disclaimer: Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead (and in particular, to Alexander the Great), is purely coincidental. (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Today the diplomatic struggle rages on. In Skopje, and the Republic of Macedonia as a whole, the people are proud of their history and of the name that unites them. Even if their government were to attempt an identity shift to appease Greece, polls consistently demonstrate that such a move would be met with widespread resistance.

Across the border to the south, many Greeks argue that the version of history taught in (RO / fYRO) Macedonia is a lie, that the history books which link them to ancient Macedon, to Alexander the Great, were largely fabricated by Tito’s propaganda machine — an effort to bolster national pride and, ultimately, to legitimize Yugoslavia’s grab for Northern Greece. According to the Greeks, these northern neighbors are Slavs, late arrivals in an ancient land, who hold no claim to local history.

The Ilinden Spomenik: A Yugoslav-era monument in Macedonia, celebrating a 1903 uprising against Ottoman rule (photograph by Darmon Richter)

The Ilinden Spomenik in Krusevo, nicknamed the 'Makedonium' (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Reliefs inside the Makedonium tell the story of Macedonia's struggle for independence (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Skopje, on the other hand, would urge Greece to relax its position. History is not static, they say, and just because Greece hasn’t achieved much of note in the last few thousand years, it doesn’t mean the world has stopped turning. Macedon was indeed a Greek state 2,500 years ago, but since then the region, and name, have been appropriated to define a Roman province, an Ottoman province, and later a republic of Yugoslavia. The Macedonian people — Slavic or not — have evolved with that name, and Macedonia’s history is their history. It is not the place of one country to dictate how another defines their identity; definitions which held true 2,500 years ago should not be used as a basis to enforce contemporary politics.

Ask a Macedonian (to clarify: a resident of RO / fYRO Macedonia), and they'll tell you that they have no desires on Greek land — the government in Skopje has even signed formal agreements promising to make no claims on Greek Macedonia. They simply want to be permitted to celebrate their own identity, one that dates back to the 680 AD conquest of this region by Slavic tribes. No, perhaps they're not native to these lands, but the Macedon Kingdom had already fallen to Roman rule long before the Slavs arrived. For Greece to claim the sole right to Macedon heritage, therefore, is to ignore an awful lot that has happened since.

Nevertheless, nationalism is strong in the Balkans — where a bloody history of upheaval and conquest lends itself to sensitivity over precariously defined identities. In the case of the Macedonian naming dispute, there would appear to be no truce in sight, and so for the time being at least, the Republic of Macedonia maintains the dubious position of a country that dare not speak its name.

The town of Ohrid in southern Macedonia was a former capital of the Bulgarian Empire (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Sunset over Lake Ohrid (photograph by Darmon Richter)

The Church of Saint Panteleimon, Ohrid, Macedonia (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Darmon Richter is a freelance writer, photographer, and urban explorer. You can follow his adventures at The Bohemian Blog, or for regular updates, follow The Bohemian Blog on Facebook.

Napoleon's horse Vizir (photograph by the author)

Almost hidden away inside a glass cabinet in one of the more obscure hallways of the Musée de l'Armée in Paris is a small taxidermy horse, a crack running down its shoulder like a fault line. These are the remains of Vizir, Napoleon Bonaparte's grey Arabian stallion that accompanied the deposed emperor to Saint Helena.

Vizir was hardly Napoleon's only horse. According to the Musée de l'Armée, over the 14 years of Napoleon's reign he used 130 horses (here's a rambling list of them). And the stallion wasn't Napoleon's most famous horse either, that would go to Marengo, a charger who served and was captured at Waterloo, his skeleton still a British trophy at the Imperial War Museum in London. But Vizir was the last horse to keep Napoleon company out in exile, and now serves as the only taxidermy reminder of all his fellow steeds employed by Napoleon in his rise and fall from power. 

Painting of Le Vizir by Pierre Martinet (via Musées de France)

Jacques-Louis David, "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" (1802-03), oil on canvas (via Kunsthistorisches Museum)

Napoleon preferred small, spry horses, rather than the thoroughbreds favored by his officers, although not because of his stature (his low height is mostly a myth anyway). Rather, he just wasn't a terribly great horseman. Not having grown up wealthy in Corsica, he didn't start riding until his military career. Yet later he would pose on horseback in his most famous portraits, such as the famous 1803 painting of "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" by Jacques-Louis David (believed to depict Marengo) where man and horse rear up on a stormy, mountainous landscape, his red cape flowing like the horse's mane. The paintings suggest a fierce pride in both his power and that of the animals he rode. 

As for Vizir, he was a friendship gift from the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. After Napoleon died on May 5, 1821 on Saint Helena, Vizir was transported to England and then France, dying in 1829. As far as it's known, Vizir is the only one of Napoleon's horses to end up in taxidermy, and he spent some time in a museum in Manchester before arriving at the Louvre in 1868, being forgotten in the attic for a time, and then transported to the Musée de l'Armée after the War of 1870. This was, of course, a few decades after Vizir's death, so how were they sure it was him? A brand on the horse's haunches bears an "N" topped with a crown.

Brand on Vizir (photograph by the author)

Archive photograph of "le Vizir" with Napoleon's dog (via napoleon.org)

The Musée de l'Armée offers a careful bit of doubt in their take on the story — stating "si c'est bien lui," "if it's indeed him" — but from most accounts the monogrammed horse was long ago the last equine companion of Napoleon. He's shrunk down a bit from botched restorations, and the taxidermy dog who also accompanied Napoleon on Saint Helena and once stood alongside Vizir in the museum now seems to have been removed from display. Yet even in his shoddy state, his fur worn down in places to the tanned skin, his glass case unglamorously positioned by a museum restroom, Vizir is just a few minutes walk from the grand tomb of Napoleon himself at les Invalides. Even in death, Vizir remains the closest final animal companion of the once-emperor. 

Vizir in his glass case

Vizir in the hallway of the Musée de l'Armée

 For more brave animals preserved in taxidermy, check out our Guide to Taxidermy Heroic Animals. 

Objects of Intrigue is a feature highlighting extraordinary objects from the world's great museums, private collections, historic libraries, and overlooked archives. See more incredible objects here >

Pizza Hut view of the Pyramids of Giza (photograph by elainne_dickinson/Flickr user)

What’s Across the Street?

Guidebooks are full of “destinations” — the majestic monument or unique site that embodies a particular location. But a place isn’t only about its famous museum or historic statue. What’s right across the street from the well-photographed tourist destination can tell a wildly different story about where you are. Juxtaposed with the well-polished, well-monied tourist spot is a deeper, unexpected history.

This guide takes a look away from the well-known tourist destinations and shows us what is hiding beyond the picture frame.

Pizza Hut Across the Street from the Sphinx and Pyramids of Giza
Giza, Egypt

Pizza Hut view (photograph by Atsuto/Flickr user)

How ancient are the Sphinx and great Pyramids of Giza? Enough that they were already 2,000 years old when Greek historian Herodotus visited the site in 450 BCE. The most famous of Egypt’s many ancient historical sites, the Sphinx and three main pyramids of the Giza necropolis have been icons of Egypt’s ancient historical heritage significance for thousands of years, and have attracted an untold number of tourists.

Common images of the Sphinx and pyramids of Giza show them standing lonely in the desert — removed from time and the frantic pace of today’s modern life. But if the camera faces the other way, it tells a very different story.

Expanding urban development from Cairo has absorbed the city of Giza and brought a metropolis to the edge of the Sphinx’s paws. Enjoying modern American-style pizza and soda from Pizza Hut while overlooking the last remaining great wonder of the ancient world may seem like an overwhelming contrast, but is simply a fact of life for the city’s residents.

Sphinx looking at Pizza Hut (photograph by Rob Flickenger/Flickr user)

Across the Street from the White House: Concepcion Picciotto
Washington, DC 

The White House Peace Vigil (photograph by Eneas De Troya/Flickr user)

The White House: home of the President of the United States and his family since 1801. Visitors schedule tours up to six months in advance for the chance to get an inside look of the mansion and experience the power of the Executive Office.

Across the street from the white columns, manicured grounds and sharp-eyed security guards is an old woman. She's holding a cardboard sign and a handful of leaflets. Her name is Concepcion Picciotto, and she has been there since 1981, carrying out the longest continuous act of political protest in the United States.

Concepcion, also known as Connie, emigrated from Spain to the United States in 1960. After a bitter divorce and custody battle, she moved to Washington DC, where she met her future partner in protest, activist William Thomas. Fueled by an intense desire for justice and peace, they both joined to protest nuclear proliferation and government deception.

They stood together for over 20 years, holding their signs, talking to anyone who would listen about the need for world peace and nuclear disarmament. The pair became a permanent fixture, despite years of sleeping in parks, living on donations, and enduring police interference. When Thomas passed away from heart failure in 2009, Picciotto was back at their protest encampment the next day, laden with memorial signs, continuing the call for worldwide peace.

Concepcion Picciotto with signs (Photograph by kansasphoto/Flickr user)

Currently, when she is not at her solemn protest, she lives in the Occupy Peace House, a non-profit haven for a political activists, owned by Thomas’s wife Ellen. Other residents of Peace House have joined Picciotto at her protest to give her time to rest, since her age and health problems are beginning to make it difficult for her to continue long shifts.

Thousands of people walk past the White House every day, and many congratulate Picciotto on her message and endurance. In a 2013 Washington Post article, she replied to them: “People always tell me, ‘We need more people like you. [...] I tell them: ‘But it starts with you. You are responsible for what’s going on.’ If people were more concerned, I wouldn't have to be there."

Picciotto's protest camp in front of Lafayette Park (photograph by NCnDC/Flickr user)

Slums Surrounding Maracanã Stadium & Olympic Facilities
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Inside the Rio de Janeiro stadium (photograph by nicholasbittencourt/Flickr user)

Originally built for the 1950 World Cup, the Maracanã soccer stadium was the biggest stadium of its time, and over the decades became a beloved symbol of Brazil. Soccer legend Pelé scored his 1,000th goal here, Frank Sinatra performed a wildly popular concert there in 1980, and the stadium was declared a national landmark in 1998.

Maracanã underwent major renovations after being selected to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics. A fiberglass roof was built to shelter 95% of the stadium seats, and seating and team facilities were upgraded with modern comforts.

With the renovations, however, came some unwelcome changes. The geral, a standing-room area with cheap tickets, was eliminated. The capacity of the stadium went from over 100,000 people to around 80,000 people. This was seen as an affront to the egalitarian nature of the game, cutting out the poorer classes who could no longer afford the suddenly rarer and more expensive stadium tickets. To compound the issue, ownership of Maracanã passed from the Brazilian government to a private owners in June of 2013, sparking protests and debate about future of the community and spirit of the stadium under corporatized ownership.

Favela near Maracanã stadium (photograph by Marco Verch/Flickr user)

The renovation and privatization controversy of Maracanã underscored a deeper societal issue. In the shadow of the gleaming white walls of the stadium is one of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, or slums, named Mangueira. Dwellings in favelas are often illegally built and occupied by low-income populations with limited access to sanitation and electricity. Mangueira and other Rio de Janeiro favelas underwent incidences of forced evictions and “pacificiations” by Brazilian police leading up to the 2014 FIFA World Cup, reviving memories of similar forced evacuations in the 1970s. Government intervention and attempted gentrification of Mangueira and other favelas ignited public anger over Brazil’s class divisions, and turned an international eye to the deep institutional inequality in Brazilian society.

Maracanã, once a common ground for the Brazilian people to join together and experience the jogo bonito, may now leave an uncertain legacy. What does it mean to have a beautiful, modern stadium, a temple to the most popular sport in the world, if the people living down the street could never afford to watch a game there?

Maracanã stadium with a favela in background (photograph by IK's World Trip/Flickr user)

Slums Surrounding the African Renaissance Monument
Dakar, Senegal 

Aerial view of the African Renaissance Monument (photograph by Jeff Attaway/Flickr user)

The tallest statue in Africa depicts a man, with his arm around the waist of a gauze-draped woman, holding in his other arm a child pointing west. The bronze African Renaissance Monument is 160 feet tall, taller than the Statue of Liberty, and dominates the skyline of Senegal’s capital, Dakar, from atop a 300-foot-tall hill.

The statue was the controversial brainchild of Senegal’s then-president Abdoulaye Wade, whose presidency was marred by widespread accusations of corruption. In a written defense of his project, Wade stated “[t]his African who emerges from the volcano, facing the West [...] symbolizes that Africa which freed itself from several centuries of imprisonment in the abyssal depths of ignorance, intolerance and racism, to retrieve its place on this land, which belongs to all races, in light, air and freedom.” The statue’s unveiling ceremony was attended by a delegation of 19 African heads of state and other dignitaries, including Reverend Jesse Jackson and Senegalese-American singer Akon.

Contrasting this grand spectacle, the behemoth monument overlooking the coastline of Dakar also overlooks its surrounding slums, where impoverished inhabitants, lacking other materials, build homes out of garbage. Half of the country’s population lives under the poverty line.

The project was widely criticized for its $28 million dollar cost, and despite its ostensible mission to celebrate African heritage, was designed by a Romanian architect, built by a North Korean construction firm, and resembles chiseled Soviet-inspired aesthetics more than actual African features. To add insult to injury, Wade claims intellectual property rights for the monument, and takes 35% of all tourist revenue generated from the statue. In a country where a multi-million dollar art project can take precedence over the population living in garbage dumps, it seems like the statue is celebrating the opposite of a renaissance — the same old story. 

African Renaissance Monument (photograph by Jeff Attaway/Flickr user)

The museums of Sex, Communism, & Torture down the street from the Prague Astronomical Clock
Prague, Czech Republic 

Prague Astronomical Clock (photograph by Godot13/Wikimedia)

The Prague Astronomical Clock was first installed in 1410, and is the oldest working astronomical clock in the world. It not only displays Babylonian, Old Bohemian, German, and Sidereal time, but the phases of the moon and zodiac signs as well. As time passes, intricate clockwork figurines and revolving statues of the twelve apostles appear and disappear, while crowds of thousands gather in the courtyard below to watch an articulated skeleton strike the hour.

What these crowds of clock-watchers might not know is that just down the street from this famous marvel of engineering, there are a few museums with subjects beyond the usual artworks and artifacts.

A seven minute walk from the Prague Astronomical Clock brings you to the Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments. Visitors wander three floors filled with the spine-tingliest examples of the horrifically imaginative ways people have devised to extract information from other people. There are iron maidens, racks, break-knees, and hundreds of other grisly tools to haunt your imagination.

Interested in more recent history? Then take short stroll to the Museum of Communism. The only museum in Prague dedicated to exploring the Communist regime in the now-Czech Republic and Slovakia, this exhibits focus on the effects of Communist rule in Prague in particular.

Museum of Communism poster (photograph by Alessandro Giangiulio/Flickr user)

Visitors can expect an immersive experience as the museum guides them through themed exhibits, including a replicated factory, schoolroom, and interrogation chamber. Displays of Communist art, stories of corruption and the secret police, and video footage of the protests leading up to the Velvet Revolution effectively recreate an atmosphere of fear and oppression, which contrasts to the bustling, energetic modern Prague.

Prague is not simply its medieval clocks and cobblestone streets: the relatively recent Communist rule is still alive in the memory of its citizens.

Soviet classroom exhibit in Museum of Communism (photograph by Salim Shadid/Flickr user)

A single minute’s walk from the clock will take you to the Sex Machines Museum. Since opening in 2002, the museum’s three floors have been dedicated to, according to the museum’s website, “mechanical erotic appliances, the purpose of which is to bring pleasure and allow extraordinary and unusual positions during intercourse.” How is that for a mission statement?

Over 200 of these erotic appliances are on display, everything from ancient chastity belts and Greek prostitutes' sandals, to leather BDSM masks, vibrators, and something called a “copulation table.” Visitors may also enjoy what is believed to be the oldest pornographic film featuring a threesome, shot around 1925 in Spain — some say at the bequest of King Alphonse XIII. Not a bad way to end a long day of touring. 

photograph by Barbara/Flickr user

Tropical Greenhouse Dome Next Door to the Daigo Fukuryu Maru Exhibition Hall
Yumenoshima Park, Tokyo, Japan

Yumenoshima Tropical Greenhouse Dome (photograph by t.ohashi/Flickr user)

Yumenoshima — “Dream Island” — is a manmade island that began as a landfill for Tokyo’s residents. In 1972, local citizens built a park over the former dumping ground, constructing several recreational facilities including a massive arcade, sports arena, and a baseball ground.

photograph by Takayuki Miki/Flickr user

One of the major attractions of this rare green space in a largely industrial area is the Tropical Greenhouse Dome, a three-chamber botanical garden. One dome features a fern forest with a waterfall, the second contains a display of tropical and carnivorous plants, and in the third dome are rare subtropical plants from Japan's Ogaswara Islands. The facility is heated entirely from an adjacent garbage incineration plant.

photograph by Guilhem Vellut/Flickr user

Just a few steps away from this dense display of life’s diversity is a much more somber reminder of the dangers of unchecked. The Daigo Fukuryu Maru (“Lucky Dragon”) was a fishing boat caught in the nuclear fallout of the United States’ experimental atomic bomb detonation on the Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954.

Hull of the Lucky Dragon (photograph by Guilhem Vellut/Flickr user)

The US Government misjudged the size of the explosion and the day’s wind patterns, and had not warned local ships or island residents about the dangers of radioactive fallout. The 23 crew members spent over three hours working in a soft rain of white ash, then began to suffer pain, nausea, and inflamed skin. After pulling into port and seeking medical attention almost two weeks later, one of the crew members died, and the others were hospitalized with radiation sickness.

News of the Lucky Dragon’s fate caused a widespread outcry against nuclear weapons testing and a panic over possible radioactive contamination of fish populations. The United States government eventually paid around $2 million dollars in compensation to the Japanese government, with each of the Lucky Dragon’s crew receiving about $5,000 for medical expenses. 

After a period of quarantine, the Lucky Dragon returned to service, and was abandoned in 1967. During the construction of Yumenoshima, the ship was found, restored, and installed as a museum in the park to memorialize those impacted by the horrors of nuclear weapons. Nearby is a simple grave marker honoring the burial of 450 pounds of radioactive tuna, caught by the Lucky Dragon’s crew that day, which was destroyed to protect it from accidental human consumption.

This quiet, green park by Tokyo Bay is itself a symbol of rebuilding life after destruction, honoring at once death and sacrifice, life and renewal.

View of Yumenoshima from Tokyo Bay (Photograph by Masayuki Igawa/Flickr user)

photograph by Jack Gillen

A woman and her two young children run through the tall grasses of Payne’s Prairie, careful of the dozens of crickets that scatter out of their way, and wary of the snakes that can stretch up to 10-feet long or more. Sometimes they catch a glimpse of an errant buffalo, and when the rains come, the cranes, heron, and egret turn the 22,000-acre Florida State Park into a birds’ paradise, in which another 270 feathered species crowd the trees and low-lying marshland. More often than not, the wild lands are home to warthogs and alligators, but on this day, Jackie Monck and her kids are looking for the swamp ponies.

Known officially as Florida Cracker Horses, the swamp ponies originate from the 1500s when the Spanish brought them over in an attempt to herd cattle in the densely bogged Florida swamps. When the settlements proved unsuccessful, the people returned home, but they left behind their horses. From there, the animals evolved through natural selection, becoming even smaller and more nimble. Their penchant for hard-work and their spirited tenacity make them a favorite for the few ranchers left in Florida today, many of whom prefer their Crackers over any other breed.

Iris Wall is 85 years old and a devout rancher in Indiantown, Florida. With 1,200 acres at her disposal, she herds and pens her 250 head of cattle as her family has done for generations before her. For her, there is no life beyond the mud and the swamp, and the Cracker cows and horses (and a few hogs, of course).

“We round up our cows just like we always did with the horses,” she says. “My grandson tried to get me one of them there cell phones, and I swear I lost it the first week. If I get bogged down out there, I just walk on out to the road and hitch me a ride home. The horse knows its way back.”

photograph by Bobby Hall

Iris and her kin are known as Crackers because of the cracking sound made by the herders’ whips. Their horses are smaller than average, with a more understated mane and crest, but Cracker Horse owners say the best way to tell one from another breed is by riding.

“They’re real agile and small, and they can outlast other horses,” says Micanopy rancher Jack Gillen. “They can go all day. They’ve got a nice, smooth, fast walk.”

Iris adds: “They got a real pretty old head, and they watch a cow, and they’re tough. When a Quarter Horse will give up, the Cracker Horse keeps going. In this climate, they’re resistant to heat and insects.”

And the Cracker Horses prove their merits year after year at the Cracker Trail Ride, which takes place the last week of February. The ride spans 110 miles across the Florida terrain, starting east of Bradenton and ending in Fort Pierce a week later. Iris has completed the ride eight times on her Cracker Horse, Abraham.

“It’s a trail they used to herd the cattle across,” she says. “A lot of times they bring the horses in from Kentucky or Tennessee where the climate is not the same, and those horses just give out during the ride. They’re just not used to the humidity here.”

photograph by Jack Gillen

Jack and Iris belong to the Florida Cracker Horse Association, which started in 1989 when the Cracker Horses were in danger of dying out. The hardship of the breed began back in the 1930s, when the Great Depression spawned government relief programs to incentivize the importation of cattle and horses to Florida from the Midwest. The Quarter Horses are a bigger, stronger breed, but they brought screwworm, which changed the way ranchers herded. While the Cracker Horses excel at penning free-range cows in this rough terrain, with new diseases and regulations, the ranchers had to start fencing the heads in. The Cracker Horse subsequently lost its working value and the breed became muddied with the Quarter Horse line. The Association started with just 31 horses on the registry but are now up to more than a thousand.

Rancher and breeder Bobby Hall is one of the Association’s founders. He’s got more than 50 Cracker Horses in addition to 300 head of cattle. He says the more frequent use of Florida’s highways forced ranchers to start penning their herds.

“Before, the cattle were on the highways and everything. A lot of the cows liked to bed up on the roadways because it’s higher and keeps the mosquitoes away. And that started causing a lot of wrecks.”

Like the others, he prefers the Cracker Horse for roping his cattle.

“You can ride them all day, and it don’t feel like you been run over by a semi-truck,” he says. “To me, the Cracker Horse has the ride of a Cadillac, and they’re very good working horses because they have so much endurance. They’ll be going in the afternoon and a lot of the Quarter Horses will give out by noon.”

photograph by Jack Gillen

For Jackie and her children, though, it is enough to be able to amble through the prairielands in search of the friendly, active swamp ponies, frolicking near the tepid marshes and bogs of Florida’s natural terrain.

“They breed out here in the wild,” Jackie says, “and yet they’re tame enough to let you go right up to them. Pet them. Feed them. They are majestic.”

Iris laments the fall of Florida’s open swamps and prairies where this scene was a common occurrence.

“If there is a wild herd, it’s not really wild,” she says. “It’s in somebody’s casher, or on state land. We’re too inhabited now.”

But state preserves like Payne’s Prairie and their population of wildlife, including the free-roaming, free-breeding swamp ponies, are reminders that no matter how civilized people attempt to make the natural habitat of this southern state, nature is right there, ready and waiting to spring to life at the slightest opportunity. The suburbs and cities of northern Florida are there because nature permits it. They work around the environment, unable to change it significantly. Or as Iris says:

“Put a house on a swamp, and it’s still a swamp. Now it’s just got a house on it.”

The Gurranes, Castletownshend, Ireland (all photographs by Barbara Yoshida, courtesy Marquand Books)

The stone megaliths dotting the planet from Stonehenge and Sweden, to Morocco and the Mediterranean, remain one of archaeology's mysteries. Whether they had a spiritual purpose, or were a measure of distance, is often lost to the centuries of time. It's that enigmatic element that drew American photographer Barbara Yoshida to spend 10 years traveling to 15 countries to capture the monoliths.

The images are compiled in a new monograph, out September 30 from Marquand Books, called Moon Viewing: Megaliths by Moonlight, which also includes an essay from art critic Lucy Lippard. The night setting and moonlight were integral to Yoshida's process as she hauled her 4x5 large format film camera to camp out alongside the massive rocks. Often it wasn't even easy to track down where they were. As she writes:

It turned out that many of the menhirs were difficult to find and and had to be almost stumbled upon. Some of them refused to be found, even with good maps. Often local people weren’t much help, since they had lived with them for so long that they didn’t take much notice. [...] My photography is a record of the journey — my experiences while I searched and while I was photographing. My main concern has been to record my subjective perceptions of these menhirs and to try to capture some of the mystery that they project. It is said that a sculptor can make stone speak. I want these stones to speak through my photographs.

While most of us know Stonehenge (including President Barack Obama who paid a surprise visit today), the density of these ancient artifacts around the world is less familiar. Below you'll see examples from Ukraine, Italy, France, Switzerland, Israel, Armenia, and the Gambia. And contrasted in Yoshida's photographs with the night sky, we're reminded that while our continents have developed into modern cities, the stars and these old sentinels have long remained the same. 

Skelsky Menhir, Rodnikovskoye, The Crimea, Ukraine

S’Ortali ’e su Monte, Tortolí, Sardinia, Italy

Pennglaouic Menhir, Pont-l’Abbé, France

Menhir de Clendy, Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland

Tel Gezer, Gezer, Israel

Ales Stenar, Kåseberga, Sweden

Zoraz Kar, Sisian, Armenia

Wassu Stones, Wassu, The Gambia

Moon Viewing: Megaliths by Moonlight by Barbara Yoshida is available September 30 from Marquand Books.

From the religious cat cult of ancient Egypt, to the booming popularity of modern Japanese cat cafes, it’s clear that the human fascination with cats is a far from new concept. With all the fuss made over felines, it hardly comes as a surprise that there are several locations dedicated exclusively to their well being and entertainment.

Below are eight sites where cats are king:

CAT ISLAND
Tashirojima, Japan

Cat Island kitty (photograph by Nakae/Flickr)

The small Japanese Island of Tashirojima is well-deserving of its nickname, "Cat Island." Stray cats were originally brought to island to aid in protecting silkworms from predatory mice. However, the locals formed a kinship with the felines, and the cats' importance grew long after the silk trade ended.

At present, the island’s population of feral cats massively dwarfs its human population of only 100. Islanders believe that feeding the cats brings good fortune, and fishermen feel the cats can help in predicting fish and weather patterns. As a result, in Tashirojima cats hold a high status. Dogs have been effectively banned, and the copious cat tours and exhibitions have made the tiny island an unlikely tourist stop for feline lovers. The cats have even made an impact on Japanese pop culture after a movie and series were based on a Tashirojima stray nicknamed “Droopy-Eared Jack.” A paradise indeed.

A cat shrine on Cat Island (photograph by Kakei.R/Flickr)

Cat Island resident (photograph by Nakae/Flickr)

ERNEST HEMINGWAY HOUSE & MUSEUM
Key West, Florida

Cat at the Hemingway House (via Florida Keys Public Libraries)

Ernest Hemingway: writer, adventurer, bon vivant, world traveler, bastion of manliness, and felinophile. The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum was the main residence for the legendary author for nearly a decade, often cited as the location for some of his most prolific years as a writer. However, the home is also a tourist draw due to the abundance of felines of the polydactyl variety.

Story goes, Hemingway was given a white six-toed cat by a ship’s captain. A lifelong cat lover, Papa Hemingway named the cat Snowball and let the tomcat run amok on his Florida estate. Today, one can see the results of Snowball’s romantic exploits in the form of the 40 plus cats that call the grounds home, the majority of them with extra digits. The cats range in breed and temperament, but following a tradition started by Hemingway, all of them are named after famous contemporaries of the author.

Ernest Hemingway with his sons & cats in Cuba (1942) (via Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library)

Hemingway cat cemetery (photograph by Ray Smith/Flickr)

Cat sleeping in the Hemingway's former bedroom (photograph by Roger Wollstadt/Flickr)

DE POEZENBOOT
Amsterdam, Netherlands

View of De Poezenboot in an Amsterdam canal (photograph by Jorge Royan/Wikimedia)

What do you do if your passion for taking in stray cats and kittens causes your home to overflow with felines? If you’re Henriette van Weelde, the obvious choice is to buy the cats their own houseboat.

Originally founded in 1966, De Poezenboot — which translates simply to "Cat Boat" — is a floating cat sanctuary on Amsterdam’s Herengracht Canal. While cats and water are typically not an ideal combination, the residents of the Cat Boat seem blissfully unaware of their wet surroundings as they receive food and veterinary care inside their floating home. The boat houses up to 50 cats at a time and serves as a means to get many of its furry inhabitants adopted into loving homes. Around 14 of the cats remain as permanent residents, the most dominant of which is named Koeienkat — translation Cowcat — a surly black and white male that serves as the ship’s honorary captain, or cat-pain.

A welcome sign for the Poezenboot (photograph by Shadowgate/Flickr)

Kitty passenger (photograph by Heidi De Vries/Flickr)

THE STRAY CAT HOSTEL
Istanbul, Turkey

Stray Cat Hostel (via hostelstraycat.com)

Stray cats in Turkey’s imperial capitol are afforded a respect that alludes felines elsewhere. The predominantly Muslim population there holds cats in high regard, as a popular adage goes, "if you've killed a cat, you need to build a mosque to be forgiven by God,” and over the years stray cats have become a much beloved icon of Istanbul city life.

As homage to the felines that roam their streets, the Stray Cat Hostel offers itself as a whimsical lodging for cats and human alike. It’s common areas are covered in cat artwork, and the seating is taken up freely by resident felines.

INTHAR HERITAGE HOUSE
Lake Inle, Burma

Cats roaming at Inthar Heritage House (photograph by butforthesky.com)

Once the royal cats of palaces and the guardians of temples, in contemporary times the Burmese pedigree cat has become a rarity in its former homeland. In an attempt to preserve and revive this majestic breed, the Inthar Heritage House in Myanmar has become a permanent residence to over 50 purebred Burmese cats. The cats are free to roam both their indoor “sanctuary” and their outdoor “cat village,” both of which are flanked by copious toys and contraptions to keep them occupied.

Shipped in from Australia and the UK, the cats at the house serve as not only as a means to further the majestic breed and reintroduce them to Myanmar, but also a venue to let people appreciate the beauty and grace of this rare breed. Visitors are welcome to get coffee at the onsite cat café and mingle with the animals, provided they show them the respect mandated by their regal pedigree.

Inthar Heritage House (photograph by butforthesky.com)

Burmese cats lounge at the Inthar Heritage House (photograph by butforthesky.com)

CAT VILLAGE
Houtong, Taiwan

Capturing the beauty of the cats in Houtong, Taiwan (photograph by Hsu Luke/Flickr)

At one time a prosperous coal-mining town, by the mid 2000s Houtong had fallen into severe decline. As the town’s human residents dwindled out, the empty streets became home to an increasing population of stray cats. In 2008 a local Houtong cat lover enlisted volunteers to aid in feeding the city’s abundant strays, posting photos and videos of Houtong’s felines online to garner support. In the tradition of Keyboard Cat and Lil’ Bub, the Houtong cats ended up becoming a viral sensation and the small town became a must see destination for cat lovers.

Houtong has fully embraced its newfound status, or cat-us, and a series of cat themed souvenir shops, bakeries, and cafés have provided a much needed boost to the town’s economy. The notoriously friendly Houtong cats thrive on the attention they get from visitors and the main bridge to the town now includes a special elevated wooden “catwalk” so that the cats can personally greet tourists arriving by train.

A cat overlooking Houtong (photograph by Dickson Phua/Flickr)

Cat houses in Houtong (photograph by P1340/Wikimedia)

CHORA
Mykonos, Greece

A cat in Chora (photograph by Chris Booth/Flickr)

The temperate beaches and whitewashed streets of Chora, a picturesque Greek beach town, have long been a frequent haunt for stray cats, but the locals have not always considered the feral animals a welcome sight. Recently the town’s inhabitants indulged their feline inhabitants, much to the delight of tourists.

In Chora every street has an accompanying feline mascot, and every corner offers a cat photo op. The formerly neglected strays of Chora have been reinvented as celebrities. The cats have even been immortalized in a coffee table book full of candid shots of the famous felines.

Cat in the old section of Chora (photograph by Random_fotos/Flickr)

Sleeping cat in Chora (photograph by Luigi Rosa/Flickr)

LARGO DI TOREE ARGENTINA
Rome, Italy

Cat at the Torre Argentina sanctuary (photograph by Andrea Schaffer/Flickr)

Located in the Campis Martius, the ancient square of Largo di Torre Argentina was uncovered by Mussolini’s reconstruction efforts in the late 1920s. A landmark rich in history, the square hosts the remains of four holy temples, as well as the infamous “Theater of Pompey,” the site of Julius Caesar’s brutal assassination. Shortly after the area was excavated, it unwittingly became a safe haven for Rome’s large feral cat population, where the felines thrived off the attention of the local gattare, or Italian cat ladies. One of these women was legendary Italian actress Anna Magnani, who famously spent her breaks from filming at the nearby Teatro feeding the cats.

The cat’s influence over the area became so great that the Torre Argentina, a no-kill sanctuary for the cats, was founded. Today, the area now serves as a home for over 250 needy cats and kittens. Cared for by volunteers, the felines are given food and medical care as they lounge and sun on the ancient ruins while awaiting adoption.

Cat at the Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary (photograph by Vix_B/Flickr)

View of the cat sanctuary (photograph by Seth Pipkin/Flickr)

For more fine felines, check out Atlas Obscura's compendium of cat places >