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Located in the belt of the Balkan Peninsula, restless, experienced by the past, looking with hope for the future – Skopje, the capital of Northern Macedonia, a city permanently connected with art with the world. Taken out of sleep, in the summer of 1963 was greeted by an earthquake measuring almost 6.1 on the Richter scale. 75 percent of the city was under the rubble, and the clock on the former building of the Main Post Office and train station will always show the time of 5.17, constantly reminding of the former cataclysm.

Until the outbreak of World War I, Brno was a distant “suburb” of Vienna and an area of textile production in Austria-Hungary. The rise of independent Czechoslovakia changed this state of affairs forever. The capital of Austria found itself in the territory of another state, and the young federation decided to transform the city into a modern center of the armed industry. As early as 1919, suburban villages were joined to Brno, the city area increased threefold, and the population exceeded 200,000. Rapid industrialization and urbanization was an impulse for changes in the city’s appearance.

Romania is a country which has undergone a complicated and paradoxical transformation: from one of the harshest communist regimes to a democratic member state…
Spojrzenie na mapę

Na rozdrożu cywilizacji

Pierwszą trudnością̨, jaką sprawia Rumunia, jest określenie jej miejsca na mapie Europy. Do której strefy przynależy? Do Europy.

A steep ladder climbs step by step clad bearded monks in long robes. Above their heads in the open skies are angelic choirs, and at the bottom are horned devils chasing from the ladder to the hellish abyss of those who hesitated and lost their balance on the road to heaven.

One of the phenomena of Central Europe is border culture. The location on the border of two or several countries determined the existence of cities as strongholds defending against the attack of enemies or enabled rapid development due to intense trade exchange. The place that shows this phenomenon in a special way is the small town of Kőszeg located just off the border between Hungary and Austria. In this charming, picturesque place we can see the complexity of the cultural landscape of the region.

“We went ahead for men’s troops. Patients with a mild disposition enjoyed great freedom, discreet caretakers watched over them. The patients were segregated to a certain extent according to social strata, also according to their level of wealth. The rooms were clean, decently furnished, the lack of social cohesion struck among the wandering men. They seemed distrustful and suspicious of each other, everyone lived only their own excited life.

For long weeks of quarantine, we dream to go on a trip, escape for a while outside the city. That is why today we offer a visit to a special place, associated with health and vitality for years. We will visit a city where various threads of Central European stories are intertwined.

There are sixteen of them. They stand at attention, grouped on a small square by the marina between two watchtowers. When fog envelops over the River Thames, they look alive from afar. These are sculptures of Peter Burke – cast in 188 cm male figures – titled “Assembly”.

New Homes is the name of a housing estate founded in 1931 in the suburbs of Stanisławów – a city that served as the administrative capital of the capital of the southeastern voivodship of the Second Polish Republic, and now a West Ukrainian city, called Ivano-Frankivsk.

Let’s have a look at the Lower Dnipro not just as Ukraine’s gateway, but as a place connecting the locals with the world since ancient times. The Northern Black Sea region was part of common European history, complete with its mythology and heroes.