China

I May Count Myself As Having Been Born Under A Lucky Star

As early as my years of instruction, while at The Academy of Music in Bucharest – as part of the group of the grand and incomparable professional singer and mentor Constantin Stroescu (Enrico Caruso's partner in Boston, 1915, in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci) – destiny

The Passage

1. You open one door and there appears another, then another, and another, up to the last one – which does not even exist – and thus you find yourself at the first door – which does not even exist – and you make a round, once more, unto familiar places, as what you

Altitude For Money

Noticing this peculiarity of the traveler abroad, the great institutions, from governments to tourist companies, established tariffs according to the altitude. Climbing the stairs up to the top of Saint Peter cathedral in Rome costs 5000 Italian pounds. Climbing up to 1900

Nemoianu In Beijing

A visit which lasts barely a week, spent most of the time in meeting and conference rooms or on the plane, cannot possibly be conclusive. You are astonished by the gentle, harmonious and calming lines of the roofs in the beautiful Forbidden City of the former emperors. You

I Have Been To New China

excerptsAlthough if you observe it partially and with amusement the Chinese landscape may look like any other landscape, the fundamental impression is of being on another planet. The soil suggests here that the matter froze quickly while boiling and it stood still in dramatic

Three Centuries After Milescu

The parallel journals of two travelers, separated by more than three centuries, who crossed Asia from the west to the east, following the same route to the capital of China, offers us a human measure of the passage of time. Double photographs of the same places, even the

Idols Of The Chinese, Their Names, And Temples

As I said in the above-written, the Chinese religion has three important parts, of which the most important, the philosophical one, is at the same time the oldest of all and the most respected and praised among the people. It has many followers and, instead of God, they

Preface To Extraordinary Travels, CD Press, 2001

excerptIn 1898, at the general assembly of the Romanian Geographic Society, its general secretary, George I. Lahovary, presenting a report on the activities performed the previous year, remarked that the Romanians had lately undertaken travels and even explorations of some

Aristide Caradja, Entomologist And Philosopher

Member of the Romanian Academy A Written Report at the Public Meeting on the 20th of April 1945 In every social group, may that be family, social class, nation, village, city, region, country, in every institution or social organization, an elite is automatically and spontaneously

Aristide Caradja, Princeps Biologorum Romaniae

I did not meet the great, indefatigable entomologist Aristide Caradja (1861-1955), but everything I have found out about him from firsthand sources has helped me understand he was a unique personality, an absolutely fascinating man. It is undoubtedly an indirect kind of

Delight In Barbu Slătineanu's House

After six years' work in the Sanitary Technical School I was admitted to the History of Art Institute. I was a researcher and I wasn't yet allowed to research the monuments of our medieval art I was so attracted to. Going through the pages of the history magazines

The Collector Hrandt Avakian

The inauguration of the art collection Beatrice and Hrandt Avakian, held on a torrid day in August 1974, brought together an extremely numerous public. The exceptional interest manifested was owed to the fact that two siblings living in modest conditions, from hand to mouth,