Kargah Buddha - Pakistan

More than 50,000 rock carvings, inscriptions and engravings of Buddha can be found  in Gilgit-Baltistan, which shows the presence of Buddhists in these areas during  the late Stone Age. Unfortunately  many of the rock engravings  have already been damaged or defaced because of vandalism and ignorance.

The rock engraving on the postcard is called “Kargah Buddha”.  It’s  located near Kargah Nallah (10 km from Gilgit Town) 
The engraving was carved in the 7th century A.D.  A buddhist monastery,  three stupas and  Gilgit manuscripts (some of  the oldest manuscripts in the world) were also found in the vicinity in the 1930^th.  

Some people say that the image of Buddha was carved on the rock in order  to pay the faithfulness to Lord Buddha.
Apart from that there’s  a local legend behind this carving. Once upon a time  the villagers asked a passing saint to help them get rid of an ogress called Yakhshini who lived at Kargah. The saint succeeded in pinning her to the rock and declared she won,t bother them for as long as he was alive, however, if they buried him at the foot of the rock, she would never be free. So the villagers killed the saint and buried him below the rock.

My own pictures of Kargah Buddha

Shanghai International Circuit - China

I received this wonderful postcard from Tomanjaro.  Thanks a lot Tomanjaro!!!

This postcard is a tribute to my old passion for The Formula 1. I'm not a Formula 1 fan anymore. I was watching it and was really interested in the racing between 2003 and 2006 when Michael Schumacher was driving for Ferrari which seemed invincible, and young ambitious to win Fernando Alonso for Renault. There were a lot of great tense battles between them. And between Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen, The ICEMAN. as well. And Alonso did it. He won The Formula 1 World Championship in 2005 & 2006. Ohhhh, I was so glad. I always liked Michael Schumacher, he's one of the best...but back then i was tired of watching Ferrari win all the time and I wanted a new face, a new hero that would come and overthrow the titans. Fernando Alonso+ Flavio Briatore+Renault made a perfect team. My heart belonged to them entirely.
In 2007 Schumacher left The Formula 1, after that Alonso left Renault, the thrill was gone. Little by little I began feeling bored with The Formula 1. Now I'm not interested.

Shanghai International Circuit

Race laps - 56
Turns - 16
Pole position - Left-hand side of the track
Lap record - 1:32.238 (Michael Schumacher, Ferrari, 2004)

Architect - Hermann Tilke
Opened - 2004
The track layout was inspired from the Chinese character shang, the first character in the name of the city Shanghai.

Jihlava - Czech Republic

Locomotives at the Jihlava train station.
I love this postcard simply becuse it made me think
of The Moscow Train Station in my hometown Saint Petersburg. Not only the locomotives but the
building in the left corner and the rails and the whole atmosphere....all that looks so
familiar. I felt like going at The Moscow Train Station, taking a train and going to visit my
relatives in the village. It's nice to travel with friends or in a company of someone
special drinking wine  or beer on the way. 

Zakynthos - Greece

The first postcards, the one from mywishlist, was sent to me by Milda.
I love the way she named the island: green + blue + white + turqoise island :-)
Actually that was my second postcard of Zakynthos. You can see my first one on the right.
The shipwreck bay.
Can you see the remains of the ship on the beach? Once upon a time the ship called "Panagiotis" carried illegal cigarettes. The storm and its damaged machine were the reason of the shipwreck in 1982. I remember the year wery well because it was the same year i was born. The waves moved the ship to the beach and the beach became the most photographed place at Zakynthos. There is no road to lead you there but you can easily go by daily cruises.
I don't think that there were daily cruises there when the ship wrecked, so the question is still the same.....Why is the rum always gone?

The second postcard offers the great general bird eye view. I can see the Blue Cave, of which i have a closer picture now, on it and the only thing that's left is a closer picture of the ship.And, of course, visiting this magnificent island.

Floating market - Thailand

This beautiful postcard came to me from Glen and Muey.
I had a couple of stamps dedicated to 50th anniversary of state visit of queen and king of Thailand to Pakistan and i thought that it would be very nice to send a postcard with this stamp to someone in Thailand. So i contacted several people and some of them liked my idea. Glen was one of those people and kindly agreed to swap with me. That's how i got this postcard.

The floating market in Rajburi. I have other postcards of this market but non of them looks so nice. It's all because of the water that looks like a liquid gold.

Glen also wrote that Bangkok used to be crisscrosed by many canals like the one on the postcard and so gained the name "Venice of the East" But today most have been filled in and converted into streets. My home town Saint Petersburg is sometimes called "The Venice of the North")))

Persepolis - Iran

Persepolis is situated 70 km northeast of the modern city of Shiraz, Iran.

Persepolis was the capital of the Persian kingdom. To the ancient Persians the city was known as Parsa (The City of Persians). Persepolis is a transliteration of the Greek name of the city which means: "Persian city"

According to Diodorus Persepolis was the richest city under the sun and the private houses had been furnished with every sort of wealth over the years…many of the houses belonged to the common people and were abundantly supplied with furniture and wearing apparel of every kind….

The bas-relief in the public hall of Darius, where The King of Kings received the tribute from all the nations in the Achaemenid Empire on the New Year occasions and gave presents in return, depicts Darius sitting on his throne with a monarchic stick in his right hand and a lotus with two buds in his left hand. The details of his clothes and throne as well as parts of the fine vessels in front of the king can be seen very delicately and precisely. All the relief works were done on dark-grey marble and were painted in ancient times. Apart from that the walls were tiled and decorated with pictures of lions, bulls, and flowers.

a postcard showing detail of Darius Public Hall bas-relief in the eastern staircase of Apadana Palace

Darius on his throne with the crown prince Xerxes

Stone Village Houses of Assos - Turkey

What we’ve got here….It’s Assos again, a city where Aristotle used to live for a while.

Thank you Deniz once again!!!! :-)

I couldn't find much about this particular place. As far as I understand  this postcard shows nicely crafted and decorated stone houses  set upon a mountainside overlooking the sea. The whole place is made of stone, some houses are old and some new but built the same.

Do you know how i love stone cottages? Well it's my second dreamhouse - a stone cottage on a narrow stone street))))