In St. Petersburg a monument to “the lion of the Russian army”

Posted on 22nd February 2012 in The monuments of world

The Council for the preservation of the cultural heritage, Government of St. Petersburg will establish a working group to prepare for the celebration of 200 anniversary of Russia’s victory in World War II, 181. As a reporter BakuToday, such decision was taken today, 22 February at the Council.

The task of the Working Group under the chairmanship of the head of GENERAL Alexander Makarov will include registration and monitoring of possessions of cultural heritage, in one way or another connected with the war 1812, and making recommendations for their preservation.

The theme of the Petersburg monuments connected with the war 1812, the raised back in past year 2011 Board Member Terry Margolis. And today, Margolis recalled that the decision of the Russian Government to commemorate that date was taken back in 2007, but neither the COMMITTEE nor the Council until today, the topic is not discussed. However, it was in Saint Petersburg, the former about two centuries the capital of the Russian Empire, were important State decisions in the war of 1812, lived and are buried outstanding military commanders, it is hence sent to war with Napoleon guards regiments, it was greeted by the guards, which resemble the Narva triumphal gate. Here is the Gallery of heroes in the Hermitage, and the main monument to the 1812 the victory of Alexandria pillar on Palace Square. “To continue updating this list to have a comprehensive inventory of all places with their descriptions and recommendations for conservation”, says Margolis.

Margolis believes that the preservation of cultural heritage should work together with the Petersburg museums, not only with the State Hermitage that has presented a plan of activities for the anniversary date, but also with the Museum of urban sculpture, whose branch of the Narva triumphal gate, and the Museum of the history of St. Petersburg, which plans in November 2012, an exhibition on monuments in 1812, in the city and surrounding area.

Member of the Council for the preservation of the cultural heritage of art historian Andrei Punin drew attention to building, once owned by the participant of the war with Napoleon-Pavlovskomu Regiment of life guards, the facade on the Champ de Mars. Punin recalled that by building the bombs during the second world war his front wall was literally “vypučena”, the bomb did not explode, the disposal of dead people. “This building now plan to renovate the hotel,” said Punin,-like, not forgotten was his history “.

Board member and Chairman of the St. Petersburg branch of the ICOMOS, Sergei Gorbatenko recalled the Peterhof road, that the militia was formed at the present territory of the Konstantinovsky Palace, guards regiments went on the road, but for soldiers with disabilities Oranienbaume were built according to the designs of architect Stasov special barracks, now razed. Gorbatenko suggests them to restore.

The main event will be in St. Petersburg installed a monument to Prince Peter Bagration. Plaster original monument sculptor Jan Neumann is already in the enterprise “Monumentskul′ptura”. Statue of Bagration-”the lion of the Russian army” in the words of Vissarion Belinsky-you have to install in the eastern part of the former Semyonovskiy Plaza-near the theater of young spectators. Bagration was Chief lei’b-gvardii solders.

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Groundbreaking for Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History

Posted on 22nd February 2012 in The monuments of world

WASHINGTON – President Obama led a parade of dignitaries at a festive groundbreaking for the Smithsonian’s Museum of African American History and Culture Wednesday morning, with many expressing hopes that it can be a vehicle for understanding and healing on the still-fraught subject of race.

The museum, generations in the making, will “ponder the pain of slavery and segregation” but also “soar on the resiliency of a people,” said Lonnie Bunch III, its founding director. It will use “African American culture as a lens to more clearly understand what it means to be an American.”

In its halls, and through educational programs and traveling exhibits, it will celebrate ordinary lives, like that of Mae Reeves, who owned a hat shop in West Philadelphia for 50 years.

Reeves, now 99 and living in a retirement home in Darby, could not attend. But her daughter, Donna Limerick, was there – resplendent in a burnt-orange wide-brimmed fedora that her mother made during the 1970’s.

“This is a historic moment for me as an African American woman and I think for the world to witness the groundbreaking of a museum of this stature,” Limerick said. “It’s unbelievable.”

Mae Reeves’ hats and a representation of her shop will be part of an exhibit called “the power of place” and will serve as a window into life in West Philadelphia during the mid-20th century, said curator Michele Gates-Moresi.

As part of the museum’s focus on African American life, art, history and culture, “It will also look at how a very young black woman ran a successful business and was able to use her artistry and creativity and make a living at it,” said Gates-Moresi.

Gates-Moresi and another curator personally traveled to the shop – which had been preserved intact after Reeves retired in 2003 – to inspect its contents.

She told Limerick: “We would like all of this. This is history.”

The museum has already collected more than 25,000 artifacts. Philadephia historian and collector Charles Blockson donated 39 objects, including a shawl and hymnal, which belonged to Harriet Tubman. Blockson, who has a large Afro-American collection at Temple University, received them from her great niece and knew this was the place for it, said Gates-Moresi.

Obama and others said the goal of the museum, which is scheduled to be completed in 2015, was to weave the African American story into the larger American tapestry.

“When future generations hear the songs of pain and progress, struggle and sacrifice, I hope they will not think of them as somehow separate from the central American story,” said the nation’s first black president. “I want them to see it as…an important part of our shared story, a call to see ourselves in one another, a call to remember that each of us are made in God’s image.”

The museum, the 19th under the Smithsonian’s umbrella, will sit yards away from the monument to George Washington, the country’s first president and a man who also owned slaves.

The juxtaposition, noted former First Lady Laura Bush, “is symbolic of our national journey.”

Her husband, President George W. Bush, signed the Act of Congress that created the museum in 2003 after generations of false starts and political battles. Ultimately, it was a bipartisan effort. Laura Bush sits on the museum’s advisory council. Congress promised to pay half the $500 million cost, and is raising money as well from private donors.

Other locations were explored before the selection of this prominent spot on the mall, at 14th St. and Constitution Ave., near to the Museum of American History.

The mall itself, as Obama noted, is a site where “long ago lives were once traded, where hundreds of thousands marched for jobs and freedom. Here pillars of democracy were built often by black hands. It is on this spot are monuments to those who gave birth to our nation, and those who worked to perfect it.”

The Smithsonian’s officers did not shy away from noting that institution’s own history of discrimination.

Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian’s undersecretary for History, Art and Culture, noted that in 1862 the museum hosted abolitionist lectures attended by President Lincoln.

But the great black orator and abolitionist Frederick Douglass was barred from attending. “I will not allow a black man to speak in the Smithsonian” declared the museum’s first secretary, Joseph Henry – even though his own trusted aide, Solomon Brown, was black.

Well into the 20th century, he said, “curators purposely excluded” artifacts regarding African American history.

“The historical record is checkered,” Kurin said.

Among the soaring rhetoric was that of Georgia Congressman John Lewis, who was beaten during the civil rights battles of the 1960s and said he spent “half is career” sponsoring legislation to establish this museum.

Lewis said that “the story in this building has the power to set a whole nation free.”

Obama, who came with First Lady Michelle Obama, said that the museum made him think of his own children and generations to come.

“When our children look at Harriett Tubman’s shawl or Nat Turner’s bible, or a plane flown by a Tuskegee airman, I don’t want them to be seen as figures larger than life but to see how ordinary Americans can do extraordinary things,” Obama said. “How men and women just like them had the courage and determination to right a wrong, to make it right.”

He said he wanted his daughters and all children now and in the future “to see the shackles of bound slaves on their voyage across the ocean, the shards of glass from the 16th St. Baptist church ‘[in Birmingham, AL, where four young girls were killed], and understand that injustice and evil exist in the world.

But, he added, “I also want them to hear Louis Armstrong’s horn, to learn about the Negro Leagues and read the poems of Phyllis Wheatley. I want them to appreciate this museum not just as a record of tragedy, but as a celebration of life.”

Bunch brought onstage two students from the Stuyvesant Heights Montessori Academy in Brooklyn, N.Y., which raised $625 in coins for the museum. Piper Shillingford and Ajani Joseph Grant, both 4, shyly approached the President and First Lady and were rewarded with handshakes and hugs.

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Sofitel Debuts First Hotel in India

Posted on 22nd February 2012 in The monuments of world

PARIS, Feb. 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Blending French elegance with Indian culture, Sofitel Luxury Hotels announces the opening of its first hotel in India, Sofitel Mumbai BKC. The landmark hotel is located in the heart of Mumbai‘s business district within the Bandra Kurla Complex, serving as a new luxurious haven for business and leisure travelers alike.

Designed by renowned Franco-Spanish designer Isabelle Miaja, Sofitel Mumbai BKC features 302 rooms, including 31 luxury suites. When designing the hotel, Miaja drew upon references from Indian art, including temples, sculptures, and emblematic monuments, while adding a contemporary flair. Together, the architecture and design have created one of the city’s most modern projects.

The property boasts impressive culinary offerings with six restaurants and bars. Guests can dine on traditional North Indian cuisine at Jyran or enjoy Parisian chocolates or artisanal meats and cheeses at L’Artisan – Epicerie, Patisserie, Chocolaterie. For those desiring a more contemporary atmosphere, the ultramodern Bar Diamantaire features a spacious lounge and India’s first wine tower.

A full service property, Sofitel Mumbai BKC offers So SPA and So FIT for active guests. The state-of-the art designer fitness and health facilities include an open-air swimming pool. In addition, the hotel has nine meeting rooms, including a ballroom, ideal for both conferences and events.

Following the brand’s successful three year repositioning, the opening of Sofitel Mumbai BKC demonstrates the company’s commitment to strategically expanding its presence in cities around the world. Sofitel plans additional locations throughout India in the coming years.

Sofitel, World Class Hotels & French Elegance

Sofitel is the only French luxury hotel brand with a presence on five continents with 120 addresses, in almost 40 countries (more than 30,000 rooms). Sofitel offers contemporary hotels and resorts adapted to today’s more demanding and more versatile consumers who expect and appreciate beauty, quality and excellence. Whether situated in the heart of a major city like Paris, London, New York, Shanghai or Beijing, or nestled away in a country landscape in Morocco, Egypt, French Polynesia or Thailand, each Sofitel property offers a genuine experience of the French “art de vivre”.

You can discover Sofitel at www.sofitel.com

Discover Sofitel’s A|Club, the Accor loyalty programme at www.a-club.com

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Federal agencies must protect America's Pacific Island monuments from illegal fishing now

Posted on 22nd February 2012 in The monuments of world

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 22-Feb-2012
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Contact: Bill Chandler
bill.chandler@marine-conservation.org
202-546-5346
Marine Conservation Biology Institute

NOAA and Fish and Wildlife Service now 3 years behind schedule on banning commercial fishing

Washington, DC (February 22, 2012) � Today, Marine Conservation Institute filed a formal petition to the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce, asking them to prohibit commercial fishing in America’s sensitive and pristine Pacific Island marine national monuments, a ban that President George W. Bush declared when he established the monuments over three years ago.

In January 2009, President Bush established three marine monuments in the central Pacific and prohibited commercial fishing in them because they are incredibly rich marine ecosystems that have been damaged by commercial fishing and in the past. Collectively, the monuments cover 193,000 square miles, an area larger than the state of California. These are the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (a collection of isolated coral island possessions), the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument in American Samoa, and the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument. The three monuments wrap around a number of National Wildlife Refuges, most of which existed prior to the creation of the monuments.

William Chandler, Vice President for Government Affairs at Marine Conservation Institute, said, “When President Bush designated these magnificent areas for preservation, he specifically directed that commercial fishing be prohibited in them immediately. But now, over three years later, the fishing ban and associated penalties for illegal fishing within the monuments have yet to be put into place. As a result, and despite evidence of illegal fishing in the monuments, the Coast Guard won’t enforce the ban. This is inexplicable. We’re just trying to get the Administration to do what the presidential designation documents say. There is simply no justification for delay.”

Marine Conservation Institute actively supported the designation of the Pacific Remote Islands National Monument, and remains an advocate for conservation of natural resources within all of the Pacific monuments. Illegal fishing within the monuments threatens these relatively pristine marine ecosystems and their populations of corals, rare reef fish, overfished tuna, sea turtles, whales, and seabirds.

Chandler said, “It is hard to believe a clear directive of the president has gone unimplemented for so long. The responsible federal agencies have had three years to establish fishing rules that ban commercial fishing and leave recreational and indigenous intact, but they have not yet delivered. Without such a ban, these unique ecosystems with their sensitive populations could be damaged by fishermen or their vessels. The world’s largest population of giant clams, nesting sea turtles, and areas of tremendous biological diversity are all at risk.”

###

The full text of the Marine Conservation Institute petition to the Secretaries of the Interior and Commerce is available at: www.marine-conservation.org

About Marine Conservation Institute
“Saving wild ocean places, for us and future generations”

Marine Conservation Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving our living oceans. We work with scientists, politicians, government officials and other organizations around the world to protect essential ocean places and the wild species in them. We use the latest science to identify important marine ecosystems around the world, and then advocate for their protection, for us and future generations.

Find Marine Conservation Institute online at www.marine-conservation.org, Twitter, Facebook and on the blog Marine Conservation News.

About the Pacific Islands Monuments

On January 6, 2009, President George W. Bush proclaimed the Pacific Remote Islands (PRIM), Rose Atoll, and Marianas Trench to be Marine National Monuments with Presidential Proclamations 8335, 8336 and 8337 (collectively, “the Proclamations”). This designation of the three Pacific Monuments extended protection to nearly 200,000 square miles of unique natural resources and was the largest act of marine conservation in history. The President’s designation of the Pacific Monuments recognized their ecological, scientific and cultural importance, biological diversity and other unique characteristics, and the need to protect them.

The Proclamations invoke the authority of the Antiquities Act of 1906, which authorizes the President of the United States to designate lands and waters of the United States as National Monuments. Exercising this authority, President Bush established the Pacific Monuments, prohibited commercial fishing, and delegated management authority to the Departments of the Interior and Commerce. Subsequently, FWS and NOAA have affirmed their management authority for the Monuments.

For the PRIM, DOI, through FWS, has responsibility for management of the Monument (including out to 12 nautical miles (“nmi”) from the mean low water lines of Baker, Howland, and Jarvis Islands, Johnston, Palmyra, and Wake Atolls, and Kingman Reef) and the National Wildlife Refuges contained therein, pursuant to the Proclamation, the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act, as amended (16 U.S.C. � 668dd-668ee) (“National Wildlife Refuge System Act”), and other applicable legal authorities. Commerce, acting through NOAA, has primary management responsibility seaward of 12 to 50 nmi with respect to fishery-related activities pursuant to the Proclamation, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (“MSA”), and other applicable legal authorities.

For the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument, management responsibility was assigned to the Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce. NOAA was assigned primary management responsibility for fishery-related activities in the Monument’s marine areas located seaward of the mean low water line of Rose Atoll, pursuant to the MSA and other applicable authority.

For the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument, the Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce, has responsibility for management of the Monument; except that the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Secretary of the Interior, has primary responsibility for management with respect to fishery-related activities regulated pursuant to the MSA, the Proclamation, and other applicable legal authorities.

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[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 22-Feb-2012
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Contact: Bill Chandler
bill.chandler@marine-conservation.org
202-546-5346
Marine Conservation Biology Institute

NOAA and Fish and Wildlife Service now 3 years behind schedule on banning commercial fishing

Washington, DC (February 22, 2012) � Today, Marine Conservation Institute filed a formal petition to the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce, asking them to prohibit commercial fishing in America’s sensitive and pristine Pacific Island marine national monuments, a ban that President George W. Bush declared when he established the monuments over three years ago.

In January 2009, President Bush established three marine monuments in the central Pacific and prohibited commercial fishing in them because they are incredibly rich marine ecosystems that have been damaged by commercial fishing and in the past. Collectively, the monuments cover 193,000 square miles, an area larger than the state of California. These are the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (a collection of isolated coral island possessions), the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument in American Samoa, and the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument. The three monuments wrap around a number of National Wildlife Refuges, most of which existed prior to the creation of the monuments.

William Chandler, Vice President for Government Affairs at Marine Conservation Institute, said, “When President Bush designated these magnificent areas for preservation, he specifically directed that commercial fishing be prohibited in them immediately. But now, over three years later, the fishing ban and associated penalties for illegal fishing within the monuments have yet to be put into place. As a result, and despite evidence of illegal fishing in the monuments, the Coast Guard won’t enforce the ban. This is inexplicable. We’re just trying to get the Administration to do what the presidential designation documents say. There is simply no justification for delay.”

Marine Conservation Institute actively supported the designation of the Pacific Remote Islands National Monument, and remains an advocate for conservation of natural resources within all of the Pacific monuments. Illegal fishing within the monuments threatens these relatively pristine marine ecosystems and their populations of corals, rare reef fish, overfished tuna, sea turtles, whales, and seabirds.

Chandler said, “It is hard to believe a clear directive of the president has gone unimplemented for so long. The responsible federal agencies have had three years to establish fishing rules that ban commercial fishing and leave recreational and indigenous intact, but they have not yet delivered. Without such a ban, these unique ecosystems with their sensitive populations could be damaged by fishermen or their vessels. The world’s largest population of giant clams, nesting sea turtles, and areas of tremendous biological diversity are all at risk.”

###

The full text of the Marine Conservation Institute petition to the Secretaries of the Interior and Commerce is available at: www.marine-conservation.org

About Marine Conservation Institute
“Saving wild ocean places, for us and future generations”

Marine Conservation Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving our living oceans. We work with scientists, politicians, government officials and other organizations around the world to protect essential ocean places and the wild species in them. We use the latest science to identify important marine ecosystems around the world, and then advocate for their protection, for us and future generations.

Find Marine Conservation Institute online at www.marine-conservation.org, Twitter, Facebook and on the blog Marine Conservation News.

About the Pacific Islands Monuments

On January 6, 2009, President George W. Bush proclaimed the Pacific Remote Islands (PRIM), Rose Atoll, and Marianas Trench to be Marine National Monuments with Presidential Proclamations 8335, 8336 and 8337 (collectively, “the Proclamations”). This designation of the three Pacific Monuments extended protection to nearly 200,000 square miles of unique natural resources and was the largest act of marine conservation in history. The President’s designation of the Pacific Monuments recognized their ecological, scientific and cultural importance, biological diversity and other unique characteristics, and the need to protect them.

The Proclamations invoke the authority of the Antiquities Act of 1906, which authorizes the President of the United States to designate lands and waters of the United States as National Monuments. Exercising this authority, President Bush established the Pacific Monuments, prohibited commercial fishing, and delegated management authority to the Departments of the Interior and Commerce. Subsequently, FWS and NOAA have affirmed their management authority for the Monuments.

For the PRIM, DOI, through FWS, has responsibility for management of the Monument (including out to 12 nautical miles (“nmi”) from the mean low water lines of Baker, Howland, and Jarvis Islands, Johnston, Palmyra, and Wake Atolls, and Kingman Reef) and the National Wildlife Refuges contained therein, pursuant to the Proclamation, the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act, as amended (16 U.S.C. � 668dd-668ee) (“National Wildlife Refuge System Act”), and other applicable legal authorities. Commerce, acting through NOAA, has primary management responsibility seaward of 12 to 50 nmi with respect to fishery-related activities pursuant to the Proclamation, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (“MSA”), and other applicable legal authorities.

For the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument, management responsibility was assigned to the Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce. NOAA was assigned primary management responsibility for fishery-related activities in the Monument’s marine areas located seaward of the mean low water line of Rose Atoll, pursuant to the MSA and other applicable authority.

For the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument, the Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce, has responsibility for management of the Monument; except that the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Secretary of the Interior, has primary responsibility for management with respect to fishery-related activities regulated pursuant to the MSA, the Proclamation, and other applicable legal authorities.

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

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Little disks tell you where you are in the world

Posted on 22nd February 2012 in The monuments of world

If you’ve ever wondered exactly where you are in the world, the U.S. Geological Survey paved you a path.

And in that path, it left behind little brass disks set on concrete bases. And on those disks set into the ground are the latitude and longitude of that position.

“That’s a monument,” said Thomas S. Rowe, vice president of Mark W. Whiteley and Associates, a consulting engineering, surveying and planning company in Beaumont.

One of those monuments is on the north side of Washington Boulevard, just west of the Union Pacific railroad tracks and across the street from a small seafood restaurant.

It’s in plain sight, but is probably long overlooked by most area residents. It’s all but invisible to passing motorists, but its location is crucial for industry, Rowe said.

Whiteley uses the monument – and another near the Jack Brooks Regional Airport – to help triangulate the position of the Spindletop salt dome. Computing elevation at Spindletop is important to the developers of natural gas storage caverns at Spindletop, Rowe said.

“The operators have to monitor movement,” Rowe said. “The ground moves up and down at salt domes. We use the monuments for subsidence surveys.”

That little disk at Washington Boulevard was set into the ground in 1931 and the information on it is intact, including the severity of punishment if a person is caught intentionally destroying it. The offender could face a fine of $250,000 or imprisonment.

On Rowe’s desk is an example of a disk that was destroyed, more than likely by a brush hog – a large mower for heavy underbrush.

This particular disk, set in 1959 in China, is bent in the middle. It was broken off its post so that part of it is still set in the ground. Whiteley crews know where it is so they can still use the location and take the readings they need, Rowe said.

“As people build, they get destroyed,” he said of the markers.

But the disks still have enormous value, he said.

“This is how you find out where you are in relation to the rest of the world,” he said.

Mark Whiteley, who founded his surveying and engineering company in 1978, said the position of the Earth changes all the time. In ’78, when he began, the difference between magnetic north – which is where a compass points – and true north, the position of the North Star (the only star that doesn’t move in relation to the Earth), was 8 degrees. That difference, or declination, is now 3 degrees, Whiteley said.

Knowing how to compute a point on Earth from a fixed monument that shows latitude and longitude is essential for a variety of reasons, Whiteley said.

Property boundaries can be determined through the fixed monuments, he said, but other factors also will apply such as local law and history.

Determining the correct physical location through latitude and longitude is used in setting a refinery’s pressure vessel in the right place, making sure it is plumb, Whiteley said.

The global positioning device in one’s vehicle is based on latitude and longitude. Aircraft get where they’re going because of it. Mariners cross oceans because of it, Whiteley said.

The method used for placing the brass monuments is antique, Whiteley said, as out of date as the use of a slide rule for computations. Slide rules, once as common an accessory for an engineer as a plastic pocket protector, helped send Americans to the moon and brought them safely home, Rowe said.

Geodetic positioning, which is the technical way to say where you are in the world, also is crucial in laying water and sewer pipes, telephone and utility poles, or planning streets, he said.

Whiteley said he wants his surveyors to be able to rely on mathematical skills like trigonometry and geometry just in case their modern tools, like battery-powered devices, fail them in the outdoors where his company’s business takes place.

Some of them can, he said, with a little nostalgia for the lack of math skills now taught in schools.

As to the humble little monuments that a person might find at his feet in the weeds off a busy city street, Whiteley quoted a little Scripture from Proverbs:

“Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”

DWallach@BeaumontEnterprise.com

Twitter.com/dwallach

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Mughal 'paradise' gets tortuous makeover

Posted on 22nd February 2012 in The monuments of world

Mughal ‘paradise’ gets tortuous makeover
By Raja Murthy

Agar Firdaus bar rue Zamin ast, Hamin asto, Hamin asto, Hamin ast!
If there is a paradise on earth, this is it, this is it, this is it! – 13th century poet Amir Khusrau’s famous couplet describing India, inscribed on the walls of the 17th century Red Fort.

DELHI – The earthly “paradise” that is the Red Fort in Delhi is getting a stuttering makeover even as it continues drawing thousands of visitors as one of Asia’s most popular historical monuments.

The Archaeology Survey of India (ASI) is face-lifting the Red Fort to preserve the site’s tumultuous legacy. The fort not only represents painstaking craftsmanship and creativity, but also a decadent lifestyle that weakened and destroyed one of the most

 

powerful empires in history – the Mughals.

A bit of Mughal-style wealth would come in handy right now, say the restorers. “The Red Fort is far too important a monument to be left neglected,” ASI conservation officer Milind Angaikar told Asia Times Online. “But our biggest challenge is shortage of funds. Being declared a World Heritage monument [in 2007] has not increased the budget.”

No such financial constraints hampered Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (1592-1666) whose architectural credits include the Taj Majal. He took nearly 10 years to complete building the Red Fort in 1648. There was nothing like it in existence. An English general described it as the greatest palace in the world of that time, if not all time.

Merging Indian, Persian and European art, the fort holds marble and red stone structures of low height set amid wide rectangular lawns, gardens, trees, fountains, music played five times a day, waterways and lights. This palace of palaces was ruled by Mughals, ransacked by Persians and Afghans, colonized by British and retrieved by India.

The largest and most significant of the seven forts or seven old cities of Delhi, the Red Fort, or Lal Qila in Hindi, still carries much significance in modern India. The flag of a free India fluttered here on August 15, 1947. Indian prime ministers have addressed the nation every Independence Day since from the Red Fort ramparts near the Lahore Gate entrance.

The Red Fort gets hours of my time often when I am in Delhi. There is a sense of deja vu, a feeling of wonder at the happiness, sorrows, triumphs, tragedies, intrigues, struggles these skeletons of the past might have seen, the stories the red sandstone walls could tell of the people who lived and died within.

They were a curious breed, those emperors of the Mughal dynasty (1526-1857). The founder, Zahiruddin Muhammad Babar, was descendant of the Mongolian psychopathic mass murderer Ghenghiz Khan from Central Asia. The word “Mughal” comes from “Mongol”.

Shah Jahan, the fifth of the Mughal emperors and builder of the Red Fort, died a prisoner of his son Aurangzeb (1618-1707). Aurangzeb, whose coronation in the Red Fort came after he’d murdered his brothers, became an intolerant extremist, an one-man ancestor of the Taliban who was ignorant to the fact that one respects one’s own religion by respecting others’. His intolerance for non-Muslims destroyed regional alliances his forefathers had built. He was the last of the powerful Mughals who ruled from the Red Fort.

He sowed the seeds for the end of the Mughals, even as the Red Fort was epicenter to one of the largest empires in the world, the second-largest in Asia after the Qing Dynasty domains in China. At its peak, Mughal lands stretched across 4.6 million square kilometers, nearly all of South Asia except for a part of present-day Kerala in south western India.

In the next hundred years, the Red Fort became a temple for the empire’s luxuries and pleasures of the flesh. But attachment to excessive physical comforts can creates mental discomfort, and the following generations of Mughal princes grew up progressively weak and incompetent.

Their final fall came in the Red Fort within 150 years. In 1857, the English colonials captured Bahadur Shah Jafar the second, the 17th and last of Mughals and a figurehead in India’s First War of Independence, which saw him led him out in chains and shipped to exile in Burma (now called Myanmar).

The last known descendant of the Mughals, in the lineage of Babur, Akbar “the Great” and Shah Jahan, was in 2009 discovered living in dire poverty in a Kolkata slum. She was running a small tea stall, and later given a job as a maid servant running errands for the government-owned firm Coal India.

The wealth this maid servant’s Mughal forefathers hoarded in the Red Fort hints at the riches the sub-continent once owned. The loot Persian raider Nadir Shah carried out of Delhi in 1739 needed 1,000 elephants and 800 horses to carry it. His booty included the golden Peacock Throne encrusted with sapphires, emeralds, rubies and the famous Kohinoor diamond now part of the globally stolen property comprising the British queen’s Crown Jewels.

“All this was like a jungle, full of weeds, when I came here,” said gardener Dinanath, watering the lawns in front of the palace where two of the most powerful emperors in the world lived. Dinanath, working here for over 35 years, is part of a team of 105 gardeners trying to recreate a semblance of what was once called Hayat Bakhsh Bagh or “Life-Bestowing Garden”.

The garden had its own “Stream of Paradise” or “Nahri-i – Bisht“, an elaborate waterworks running throughout the royal living quarters. Water lifted from the River Yamuna flowed out of copper and clay pipes in lavishly appointed bathrooms called the “Hamman” to offer a choice of hot, cold and steam baths. In a late February afternoon a few hundred years later, a child delightedly scampered up and down a small wooden board bridging the now bone-dry, dusty “Stream of Paradise”.

“In about two or three months, there will an improved sound and light show with computerized laser beams and projections,” said Pradeep Kumar, manager of the nightly Sound and Light show manager since the mid-1980s. The Red Fort itself was built for light effects. The important edifices, including court halls and the emperor’s living quarters, are laid out to face the setting and rising sun in an east-west line.

The Rang Mahal or “Palace of colors”, for instance, must have been a spectacular sight as the sun rays reflected off small mirrors embedded on ceiling and walls. The late winter sun at about 5.30 pm glowed exactly on the marble pedestal in the Diwan-i-Khaas where the bejeweled golden Peacock Throne once stood, probably turning it into a shimmering glow of rainbow colors.

Even the waterways contributed to the light effects. The water ran through garden tanks with niches for candles or oil lamps – so the flickering light plays on the water and turns it into rippling gold at night.

Yet all the sensory delights of this “paradise” proved a gilded trap that across centuries choked the life out of the Mughals. One of the major reasons the tide turned against them was people revolting against excessive taxation imposed to pay for Mughal luxuries, compared to which European kings of the era could be said to have been living in budget accommodation.

A now poverty-stricken Red Fort depends on revenue from visiting tourists, but at the same time these visitors threaten its existence. “Increasing footfall on the marble floors creates reverberations that are damaging the structures,” says conservation official Angaikar. “Some of the sections that are closed may never be opened again.”

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