Statues Without Plinths

A Collection of Plinthless Statues, Starting in the Caribbean and Moving East to the Shore of the China Sea

Introduction

There was a time when effigies of ‘the great and the good’ stood on plinths so pigeons could perch on their heads and the rest of us could look up to them. The ultimate was Admiral Nelson whose plinth – or column - is 52m high. The figure itself is over 5m, but for the sculptor (Edward Hodges Bailey) it must be galling to have worked so hard on something that very few people ever see properly.

Nelson's column, Trafalgar Square, London in November sunshine

I don’t know where or when the fashion started but I think I first saw statues of normal sized people standing on the pavement (or, in this case, sidewalk) in Tacoma, Washington (the western US state, not the eastern city) in 1998. The next summer, in the south of France, we found them in several towns; whichever side it started the idea had already jumped the Atlantic. Over the last twenty years it has spread to most corners of the Earth.

I like these statues. Most (but not all) are light hearted, and I appreciate being able to look a statue in the eye. So here is a selection of writers and musicians, ordinary people and eccentrics, cats, dogs and more. My (arbitrary) rules for inclusion accepts a pedestal up to knee height, but the figure must to be roughly life size. I also feel free to bend my rules whenever I want.

Cuba

No doubt I took some photos in Tacoma in 1998, but prints are so much easier to loose than digital photos, so I will start in the Caribbean, in Cuba to be precise.

Havana
(visited March 2020)

When not physically looking up at a sculpture, there is no pressure to metaphorically look up to the person portrayed, you just have to enjoy their company.

El Caballero de Paris outside San Francisco de Asís

El Caballero de Paris (real name José María López Lledín) stands outside the former Church and Convent of St Francis of Assisi. Brought to Havana from Spain by his parents aged 11, he had mental problems in later life and lived on the street while believing he was a French aristocrat. Despite his loose grasp of reality, his charm and education made him a well-known and popular figure. He died in 1985 aged 85. Such statues, appreciate being touched and Lynne earned good luck, as many had done before, by stroking his beard.

Ireland

Dublin
(visited 25 June 2014 - Joyce and Famine Memorial)
24 June 2014 - Oscar Wilde)

The Prick with the Stick (more formally, James Joyce) is arguably the foremost writer in a city of writers, though he spent most of his adult life on the continent of Europe. I am overlooking his plinth as it is (just) below knee high.

Lynne and James Joyce, Earl Street, Dublin

His statue is one of four with rhyming nicknames. The Queer with the Lear is Oscar Wilde who sits on a slab of quartz (not a plinth) in Merrion Square Park opposite the house of his father, an eminent Dublin surgeon.

Lynne and Oscar, Merrion Square Park, Dublin

We missed The Tart with the Cart (Molly Malone) as she had been temporarily removed to allow for the construction of a tramway, and The Floozie in the Jacuzzi (Anna Livia Plurabelle, James Joyce’s personification of the River Liffey) due to my poor research.

The Famine Memorial stands beside the River Liffey. Most of the statues in this post are light-hearted, but not this one. The group of ragged people and their equally thin dog stand on the quay, almost staggering to the point of embarkation. Dublin has plenty of public art, much of it very good, but this is at another level. You can almost feel these people's misery as they embark on a journey they may well not survive. For some it will be the gateway to a new and better life, but as they stand here, on the very edge of Ireland, they have few dreams and little hope.

The Famine Memorial, Dublin

And here is a photo from behind - I felt the sculptor wants us to see them this way, too. They stand facing the sea with their backs to their old lives knowing there can be no return as the cringing dog realises that he will be left behind.

The Famine Memorial, Dublin

Galway
(visited Jul 2016)

Meanwhile, over on the west coast, the city of Galway also has an Oscar Wilde. He shares a seat with his Estonian contemporary and near namesake Eduard Vilde. They never met and as far as I have been able to ascertain, their lives had little else in common. The sculpture was a gift from the people of Estonia when they joined the EU in 2004.

Lynne with Oscar Wilde and Eduard Vilde, Galway
The original (minus Lynne) is in Tartu the 'intellectual capital' of Estonia

United Kingdom

I have a 2013 post entitled Commemorating Comedians in Caerphilly, Morecambe and Ulverston - which I whole-heartedly recommend (well I would, wouldn't I). It consists of statues of four comedians and their background stories. One of them has a plinth, the others would be appropriate here but I don't wish to repeat myself, so please click on the link.

Edinburgh
(Visited July 2021)

Greyfriars Bobbyis by far the oldest work in this post. He has stood patiently, with an ever-shinier nose, atop a substantial plinth since 1873. Only it isn’t really a plinth, it’s a double drinking fountain, people at the top, dogs at the base. As Bobby is a small dog, he needs a plinth or passers-by would trip over him.

Greyfriars Bobby, Edinburgh

Greyfriars Bobby was a Skye Terrier. After his owner died in 1858 the dog kept a vigil at his graveside in the nearby Greyfriars Kirk cemetery, until his own death 14 years later. This demonstrates the heart-warming loyalty of man’s best friend - or perhaps the pathetic neediness of dogs; a self-respecting cat would have raised its tail and stalked away

Burwash, East Sussex
(Visited Sept 2021)

For most of his adult life Rudyard Kipling lived in house called Batemans (currently owned by the National trust and open to the public) just outside the village of Burwash. He now sits in perpetuity on a bench beside the main road through the village.

Lynne and Rudyard Kipling, Burwash

Kipling had the instincts and attitudes of any man of his class born in the latter half of the 19th century. As an unabashed imperialist and the Poet of Empire, he should be out of fashion, but isn’t. He cannot be blamed for the circumstances of his birth, but he should be celebrated for the humanity which shines out of so many of his works. People may argue about his qualities as a poet, but he was undoubtedly one the greatest versifiers in the English language.

Portugal

Loulé
(Visited Oct 2022 and many times previously)

We have been frequent visitors to the Algarve, and for many years Loulé market was our first stop, directly from the airport. In 2006 and 2007 we found the market closed. When it reopened the familiar handsome neo-Classical/Moorish façade fronted a bright, clean and airy new market. Everything was back as it was, only its soul was missing. Revisiting Loulé in 2023 for the first time for several years we found a market trader from the old days, sitting on the steps outside, wondering what had happened to it all.

Bewildered market trader, Loulé

North Macedonia

Stepping lightly from one side of Europe to the other we arrive in a land that was once part of Yugoslavia.

Skopje
(visited May 2015)

Nikola Gruevski (Prime Minister 2006-16) initiated the‘Skopje 2014’ project and ‘Antiquization’. These were exercises in nation-building, promoting a Macedonian identity with unbroken continuity since antiquity and involved, among other things, the building of many large, nationalist statues and memorials. There were two problems. The Macedonia of antiquity, the land of Alexander the Great, was Greek and modern North Macedonians are mostly descended from the Slavic tribes who settled here some 900 year later. Secondly, he spent a great deal of money the city did not have. He resigned after riots in 2016, was subsequently charged with corruption and sentenced to two years in prison. He fled to Hungary and claimed political asylum.

Gruevski’s statues have enormous plinths, but Skopje also has several plinthless statues. A necessary antidote to Gruevski’s bombastic monstrosities, they exemplify a pleasanter and more approachable side of the Macedonian character. The Musicians can be found near ‘Warrior on a Horse’ (under an agreement with the Greeks it is not called ‘Alexander the Great’)

The Musicians, near Macedonia Square, Skopje

While The Divers are on one of the piers of Skopje’s 6th century Stone Bridge. Not great sculpture, perhaps, but it makes you smile, and that is good enough for me.

The Bathers, Stone Bridge, Skopje

Lithuania

Vilnius
(Visited July 2011)

I am always surprised how far east the Baltic States are. Vilnius is actually east of Skopje, but never looks it on a rectangular 2-D map.

After achieving independence from the USSR in 1990 Lithuania had a wealth of statues it no longer wanted, so Lenin and friends were retired to a park near the Belarus border. New statues were raised to various medieval heroes and, in a car park beside an anonymous apartment block in a residential area near the city centre, to Frank Zappa. The bust was erected in 1995 after funds were raised by civil servant Saulius Paukstys. A man blessed with an individual world view and a keen sense of irony, Paukstys commissioned the sculptor of many of the Soviet heroes, to produce the bust. Zappa has no connection with Lithuania, has never visited and before the bust was largely unknown, but the project caught people’s imagination as a wryly ironic gesture in a country that had seen enough of political monuments. (Rough Guide)

Frank Zappa,Vilnius
I know he has a plinth (or column?) but, like Greyfriars Bobby, he would be a trip hazard without it

Armenia

Yerevan
(Visited July 2003)

Mesrop Mashtots (Մեսրոպ Մաշտոց) (362 – 440CE) sits outside the Matenadaran (Մատենադարան) at the top of Mashtots Avenue, one of Yerevan’s main throughfares. The positioning is appropriate, the Matenadaran is a museum and research institute specialising in ancient Armenian manuscripts, and Mashtots is the man credited with inventing the Armenian alphabet (examples above). The (rather weathered) 36 letter alphabet is engraved on the stela to his right.

Mesrop Mashtots, Yerevan

The Fat Cat. I am breaking my own rules here, the plinth is small enough, but the figure is many times life size, but if you are going to portray a Fat Cat it has to be a very large and very fat cat. I hope this is a political statement, but I don't know if fat cat has the same meaning in either the sculptor's native Colombia, or Armenia.

Fat Cat, Yerevan

Georgia

Tbilisi
(visited August 2014)

The Tamada.

Modern Georgia includes the ancient land of Colchis, where Jason and the Argonauts rowed to steal the Golden Fleece.

The myth of the Golden Fleece has historical origins. Many of the streams flowing down from the high Caucasus bear gold, and it was traditional extracted by damming the flow with fleeces so the shiny metal adhered to the sticky untreated wool. This practice may date back to the 3rd millennium BCE, and archaeologists have found huge quantities of golden grave goods, many of which can be seen in the National Museum in Tbilisi. Among them is a seated figure, less than two centimetres tall, holding a drinking horn.

Tamada and us, Tbilisi

The supra (feast) is an essential part of Georgian culture and every supra need a tamada, (toastmaster) who proposes toasts for others to elaborate upon and so keep the wine flowing. Cast in bronze, many times the size of the original, the little fellow has become Tbilisi’s permanent honorary toastmaster. Every visitor to the city poses with him, those small enough sitting on his lap.

China

With a long eastward leap we reach the final country of this post, and two very different cities.

Pingyao
(visited Sept 2014)

600km southwest of Beijing, Pingyao is an old, walled Qing/Ming city, an artfully pickled oasis among the usual Chinese urban sprawl. We visited during the mid-autumn holiday when the town was packed and the Chinese tourist machine was turned up to eleven.

During our perambulation on the city wall we met the night watchmen…

The Night-watchmen, Pingyao city walls

…and the city governor holding a writing brush and about to get down to work. Nothing is taken too seriously here.

The city governor gets down to work, Pingyao

Hangzhou
(visited Nov 2016)

200 km southwest of Shanghai, Hangzhou is the centre of a metropolitan region of over 10m inhabitants. It is the home to Alibaba, one of the world's largest retailers and e-commerce companies and the fifth-largest artificial intelligence company. If Pingyao is China’s past, Hangzhou is its future. Street statues here are not primarily to amuse, though they may make older people smile.

Workers, Hangzhou

For many they are images of a past they do not remember.

Street market, Hangzhou

I have more, but this as probably as much (or more) than most would want at one sitting, so I shall stop. I do like these statues, I like to see who or what the locals wish to commemorate, or how they view their past. Most are not intended to be taken too seriously while one is very serious indeed, but all add to the interest of the towns or cities they call home. And can I have a bonus point for for a post which references Greyfriars Bobby, Frank Zappa and Alexander the Great?

Possibly also of Interest

Statues Without Plinths (2023)
Socialist Realism: In Praise of Bad Art (2022)
The Boxes of Carvoeiro (2016)

Sculptors and Dates of Installation (when known)

Liverpool
Duke of Wellington by George Anderson Lawson, 1865
Havana
El Caballero de Paris by José Ramón Villa Soberón, 2001
Dublin
James Joyce by Marjorie Fitzgibbon, 1990.
Oscar Wilde by Danny Osborne, 1997
Famine Memorial by Rowan Gillespie, 1997
Galway Wilde and Vilde by Tiiu Kirsipuu, 2004
Edinburgh
Greyfriars Bobby by William Brodie, 1873
Burwash
Rudyard Kipling by Victoria Atkinson, 2018
Loulé
Market Trader by Teresa Paulino and Pedro Felix
Vilnius
Frank Zappa by Konstantinas Bagdonas, 1995
Yerevan Mesrop Mastots by Ghukas Chubaryan, 1968
Fat Cat by Fernando Botero
Tbilisi
Tamada by Zurab Tsereteli, 2013

Socialist Realism and some Western Fantasies

In Praise of Bad Art

Let’s get the confession out of the way right at the start: I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.

This is not, for once, the precursor to an ill-informed rant about ‘modern art’, it is merely a statement of fact. I studied sciences at school and engineering at university but when I became a teacher I returned to mathematics, always my favourite school subject (and that, no doubt, proves to some that I am, at the very least, odd). I spent my last art lesson, aged 14, as I spent most cleaning brushes and sharpening pencils, I had learned long before that any ‘art’ I produced would be not just bad but embarrassing, so I produced none – and have continued to produce none for the next 58 years. I am not going to change now.

Socialist Realism

But that does not mean I do not appreciate other’s efforts. This post is an appreciation of one, odd, quirky artistic backwater that we have encountered in our travels. Socialist Realism is probably of more interest to students of politics and sociology than of art, but I know what I like – and I like it.

The Leaders

The 1917 Russian Revolution was a major convulsion. The past was over, everything, including art, had to begin again. Many within the artistic community were happy to be co-opted into the new future.

An enormous head of Lenin, Ulan Ude in the Russian far east

Stalin, like Hitler, had no time for decadent artforms, but the idea of Socialist Realism emerged slowly, the term being first used in 1932. In 1934 the four guidelines of Socialist realism were laid out at the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party.

Lynne and Uncle Joe, Stalin's birthplace museum, Gori, Georgia

Art must be:

1) Proletarian: art relevant to the workers and understandable to them.
2) Typical: scenes of everyday life of the people.
3) Realistic: in the representational sense.
4) Partisan: supportive of the aims of the State and the Party.

Waiting for the firing squad?
Stalin, Lenin, former Albanian leader Enver Hoxha (and some extras) stored in a rarely visited corner of Tirana castle

So how do the works above measure up to the guidelines?

An 8m high, 42 tonne head of Lenin erected in 1970 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth is easily understood by all workers: it says THE PARTY IS IN CHARGE literally (almost) in caps lock. What it means for it to be in situ 30 years after the end of the USSR is another question. The other statues said the same, only more quietly, but their new locations have changed the message. They now say: the party’s over.

All are undoubtedly realistic, Lenin very much so. Stalin looks like he was carved in frozen yoghurt and is now melting, but it is obviously him. The Albanian examples are not such good likenesses, though they have been bashed around and Enver Hoxha is hiding his face with his arm. The stone carving at his feet is actually a good likeness of him, despite the smashed nose – the least he deserved from an ungrateful nation with much to be ungrateful for.

Enver Hoxha with broken nose, Tirana Castle, Albania

That they are partisan is unquestionable, but Guideline 2...?

Peasant Wedding, Peter Breughal the Elder
(public domain)

Well, three out of four is not bad, but Peter Breughel the Elder also scored 3 out 4 - several times. The Peasant Wedding, for example, is proletarian and easily understood, is a scene of everyday life and is realistic. As for supporting the aims of the Party, Breughel died 300 years before 'The Party' was born so could neither support nor oppose. However, he depicts peasants/proletarians as human beings with our well-known virtues and vices, so, I think, too much realism for Socialist Realism.

Perhaps the rulers are not the most distinctive parts of Socialist Realism, I see little intrinsic difference between a statue of Lenin and one of Queen Victoria or Winston Churchill. So, lets have a look at the Proletarian struggle.

The Soldiers

But first, a folk hero. David of Sassoun is the hero of the Rebels of Sassoun an epic Armenian poem of unknown antiquity, first written down in 1873 after a millennium or so of oral transmission. The soviet authorities cautiously approved of national heroes; if they could not be linked to any modern political faction, they could be co-opted to the proletarian cause.

David of Sassoun, Yerevan, Armenia

A statue was erected outside Yerevan station in 1939 to celebrate the (conveniently invented) 1,000th anniversary of the poem. It was destroyed in 1941 when sculptor Yervand Kochar was accused of praising Adolf Hitler, but Kochar survived and kept his gypsum original. In 1959 a new casting was made to belatedly celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Russian revolution. It was in poor condition when visited in 2003.

And the guidelines? Proletarian? Yes, a folk tale is a story of the proletariat. Partisan? Yes, David of Sassoun was officially viewed as a proto-communist. Typical? You cannot have everything! Realistic? Look at those tree-trunk legs!

And here we encounter a problem that runs through all warriors in Socialist Realism. Proletarian soldiers must look impressive, like this chap on guard at Gjirokastër castle in Albania…

Soldier, Gjirokastër Castle, Albania

...or, better still, superhuman like this intimidating group of North Korean heroes. This is realism only for the deluded. The man firing the gun (his forearm like David of Sassoun’s leg) sensibly crouches behind the shield, but the lunatic with flag clearly has a death wish. And the man just behind? A fine physical specimen, maybe, and remarkable clean, as men involved in warfare seldom are, but he is the only North Korean male I have ever seen sporting a side-parting.

Heroic DPRK soldiers, Fatherland War Liberation Museum, Pyongyang

We saw many soldiers during our week in North Korea. They were small, proud men in cheap, poorly made uniforms one size too large. No one below the rank of colonel gets a uniform that fits, or perhaps no one below that rank eats well enough to fill the uniform they are given. None of them looked like any of the group above.

Workers, Peasants, Men, Women and Children, More Fighters, More Leaders

Long Live the Great socialist October Revolution , 31st Anniversary (1948)
City Museum, Tallinn, Estonia

The men above, and the peasants, children etc immediately above and below exemplify the problem of Socialist Realism. Scenes of everyday life (and warfare) must support the aims of the party. So, soldiers must be heroic, and workers must be happy and thriving, and owe that to the party, and know they owe it to the party.

Long live the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, 11th Anniversary
City Museum, Tallinn, Estonia

Somewhere in the corner, Breughal would have included a grumpy git, or somebody cheating in some way, but Socialist Realism cannot allow this, everybody must be cooperating happily. That you cannot please all the people all the time, is an immutable law of human nature and so Socialist Realism can never be realistic. The problem is not with socialism specifically, it is with mandating art to support the government.

When a leader joins his adoring people, realism is missed by an extra notch. Travellers arriving on Puhung metro station (one of the four stations on the Pyongyang metro open to foreigners) are greeted by no less than Kim Il Sung, the DPRK's Eternal Leader.

Kim Il Sung himself, welcomes us to Puhung station on the Pyongyang metro
Notice the miner's foot on the stairs, the DPRK is very keen on trompe l'oeil

Two Favourites

I will finish this section with my two favourites. The first is a mosaic on the façade of Tirana’s Museum of National History.

Albanian Museum of National History, Skanderbeg Square, Tirana

It displays the whole of Albanian history, starting with the Illyrians and Thracians on the left before moving seamlessly to the intellectuals of the 19th century Albanian Renaissance. On the right are the workers and peasants who saw off the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century - one woman giving a distrustful backward glance at the intellectuals. All are led into the glorious socialist future by a worker, a soldier and an inappropriately dressed young woman with a right forearm that would not disgrace a blacksmith. She would be terrifying even if she was not carrying a rifle. Such works need to be treasured as many have already disappeared, been painted over or dismantled as Albania deals with its new reality.

Mosaic, Albanian Museum of National History, Skanderbeg Square, Tirana

The second is a painting in the lobby of the May 6th Hotel, Sariwon, North Korea which expands the delusion to a whole new level of ‘Realism’. The conceit here is not just that North Korea is a paradise, but that leaders from across the world recognise this and come to admire and seek advice from the great Kim Il Sung himself.

Kim Il Sung meets the people of the world, May 6th Hotel Lobby, Sariwon, North Korea 

Capitalist Realism?

Hitler’s tastes in art were apparently similar to Stalin’s and the Nazis promoted Heroic Realism which has a studied arrogance that Socialist Realism lacks.

"Capitalist realism" has been used to describe the Pop Art of the 1950s and 1960s and the commodity art of the 1980s and 1990s, but as a self-knowing play on "socialist realism". Search for ‘Capitalist Realism Paintings’ on google images and it is difficult to see the theme running through the results, although artwork from the Jehovah’s Witnesses magazine The Watchtower, does come up a few times; it undoubtedly has the style and lack of self-awareness, of the finest Socialist Realism.

But can there a precise western counterpart of Socialist Realism - when you are living the dream, why pretend? Yes, of course, there can, and I have two examples, one American which I call Hollywood realism, the other British, Imperialist Realism, perhaps..

British Imperialist Realism

The neo-Baroque head office of Liverpool's Royal Insurance Company was completed in 1903. It is now the Aloft Hotel where we stayed last year. A remarkable stone frieze sits below one window. The soldier-like figures suggest the British Empire is out there comforting widows and their children, building railways across the wilderness and erecting churches to shine light into the world’s darkest places - and all these activities are protected by the Royal Insurance Company.

Frieze, Aloft Hotel, Liverpool

The British empire was, of course, an unalloyed force for good in the world, spreading the benefits of civilisation and Christianity; it was never about exploiting the wealth or the inhabitants of far-away countries. There were people who believed that then – there are some who believe it now, even some in positions of power and influence.

Hollywood Realism

​In 2013 we flew into North Korea from Beijing, but returned by overnight train. We lunched in Korea, reached the border in late afternoon and rolled across the Yalu River into the Chinese city of Dandong in early evening. North Korea is the only country we have ever left with a feeling of relief and we savoured the welcoming bright lights, bustle and (yes) freedom of China.

We dined on the train after it left Dandong. In Korea food (for us) was plentiful if not particularly interesting and our Chinese dinner was like eating in full colour after our monochrome Korean lunch. But the Korean’s brew good beer, and the only beer available with with our dinner was Pabst, a brew which contributed fully to the USA’s former reputation as a beer drinker’s desert. More interesting than the beer was the artwork on the cans, a set of half a dozen, rather similar pictures, one of them reproduced below.

Pabst beer can - Heroic American Soldier, smiling, friendly and armed to the teeth
A can with bad taste inside and out?

The copyright of the above picture belongs to Interbrand and I have borrowed the artwork from their website. They inform me these special edition cans were made only for the Chinese market. I make no further comment.

Why I like Socialist Realism

I started by saying I liked Socialist Realism, I ought now to explain why.

I am not that keen on the leaders, but I love the cheerful pictures of happy workers, peasants and soldiers. But only a fool takes them at face value, behind every silver lining there is a cloud, a very obvious cloud in the case of the death-defying, North Korean, machine gunners.

Socialist Realism is, of course, fantasy, but it was conceived as realism, the irony in the name is unintentional. Many people are involved in the production of public art. A top-level decision is made to create, say, a mosaic, artists work on designs, a committee will choose the winner, workers will make the pieces and put them in place. I suspect somebody among them will honestly believe in what they are doing, though most will just get on with their jobs. But where is the belief? At the top? Among the workers? Surely not among the artists, or is it?

I love the ambivalence and ambiguity, though I admit they are easier to enjoy when they are safely in the past; some of the North Korean examples – and the American beer can – are more worrying.

…and finally…

The Korean Worker’s Party Monument in Pyongyang is a typical piece of DPRK bombast…

Korean Workers' Party Monument, Pyongyang

…but inside the circle of concrete blocks, just above head height, is a frieze, a relief of women, soldiers, children, aviators and more whose task is, apparently, to outstare the future.

Nobly attempting to outstare the future, Korean Worker's Party Monument, Pyongyang

I cannot believe there was not a knowing hand in here somewhere.

In a Similar Vein

Statues Without Plinths (2023)
Socialist Realism: In Praise of Bad Art (2022)
The Boxes of Carvoeiro (2016)

Praying Facing South: The Variety of Mosques Part 1

This post and its companions (Praying Facing East and Praying Facing West) have been developed from the November 2011 post ‘Three Favourite Mosques’. Although the world has many fine mosques we have yet to visit, we have now seen more than enough to make ‘Three Favourites’ a very limited ambition – indeed the 'favourites' now fill three post.

Islam is the world’s second largest religion with 1.9 billion adherents. It is the majority religion in 49 countries, centred on the middle east but with a vast geographical spread. In 2005 we visited The Great Mosque in Xi’an in China. Some distance away an English-speaking person with an overloud voice (his nationality was immediately obvious) was giving his Chinese guide the benefit of his knowledge of Islam. ‘They have to pray facing East,’ he announced.

This map comes from Wikipedia. It is the work of Tracey M Hunter, the figures are from Pew Research Centre
It is reproduced unchanged under Creative Commons Attribution- share Alike

Muslims, of course, pray facing Mecca, the city, now in Saudi Arabia, that was home to the Prophet Muhammed. To make sense of my collection of mosques I have split it into three, depending of the (rough) direction of Mecca. The mosques I have selected are old or beautiful or quirky or have an interesting history, or any combination of those four.

I should point out I am not a believer, in Islam or any other religion, but I do like religious buildings.

For ease of access and because I have occasionally broken my own rules, countries are allocated as follows

Facing East	Jordan, Oman, Egypt, Libya, Portugal	Arab Countries (with one obvious exception!)
Facing South	Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Albania, North Macedonia, Bosnia & Herzegovina	Countries wholly or partly in Europe
Facing West	Iran, India, China, Malaysia	An ethnic mixed bag

9 of the 18 are Muslim Majority countries, the other have or had an indigenous Muslim population.

Turkey

The Islamic world expanded dramatically in the century after the prophet’s death (632CE), much of the expansion coming at the expense of the Byzantine Empire. It was not until 1095 that expansion further into what is now Turkey prompted the Byzantine Emperor to ask the Pope for assistance. He sent the First Crusade, which rather by-passed Constantinople on its way to Jerusalem.

The extent of the Umayyid Caliphate in 750
The work of Gabagool and borrowed from Wikipedia under Creative Commons licence

The Byzantine Empire endured death by a thousand cuts, its suffering finally ending in 1453 when the Ottomans took Constantinople. As Istanbul is the only part of Turkey we have visited, this is where my mosques must be.

Istanbul has many to chose from. There was a mosque just up the road from our hotel in the narrow streets of the old Sultanahmet district. It was small, but the dawn call to prayer was so loud I thought the muezzin was sitting on the end of our bed. That said, Istanbul has 2⅓ of the world’s finest mosques.

Süleymaniye Mosque

If not perhaps Istanbul’s best-known mosque, the silhouette of the Süleymaniye Mosque across the Golden Horn is one of the city’s signature views.

The Süleymaniye Mosque and the Golden Horn, Istanbul

Commissioned by the Ottoman Emperor Süleyman the Magnificent, the mosque was designed by imperial architect Mimar Sinan and built between 1550 and 1557.

The photograph was taken from the top of the Galata Tower, see Istanbul (4) Taksim Square and the Galata Tower (2014)

The Blue Mosque

Built between 1609 and 1616 for Sultan Ahmet I, the Blue Mosque was the last great mosque of the Ottoman classical period. Despite its graceful cascade of domes and semi-domes, it was not without its critics. Such size and splendour, they said, was inappropriate when the Persian war was going badly and Anatolia was in a state of anarchy, and if that was not enough, having six minarets, like the Great Mosque of Mecca, was sacreligious.

The Blue Mosque, Istanbul

Despite the crowds we found the interior retained an air of calm serenity. The blue tiles that gave the mosque its name dominated, but there were pinks and greens too, and over 250 windows giving a feeling of space and light.

Inside the Blue Mosque, Istanbul

The huge dome is beautiful, but the chunky ‘elephant leg’ pillars required to support it look out of proportion.

The dome of the Blue Mosque, Istanbul

Haghia Sophia

Earlier I referred to 2⅓ mosques, Haghia Sophia is the ⅓. Door-to-door it is 300m from the Blue Mosque and the photos of each were taken from the same spot. Completed in 536, the church of Haghia Sophia was built for the Byzantine Emperor Justinian. It is perhaps the greatest architectural achievement of the Byzantine Empire and the Blue Mosque, built over a thousand years later, appears to owe something to its venerable neighbour.

Haghia Sophia, Istanbul

With the arrival of the Ottomans, Haghia Sophia became a mosque. The four minarets, rockets on ugly concrete pedestals, are regrettable, but inside the changes were sympathetic. I called it ⅓ a mosque, as it has been a church, a mosque and now a secular museum. Today the Islamic minbar and calligraphy….

Minbar and Islamic calligraphy, Haghia Sophia, Istanbul

…sit easily beside the earlier Byzantine mosaics.

Virgin and Child with the Emperor John II and his wife Irene, Haghia Sophia, Istanbul

[Update: As of 2020 Hagia Sophia is a mosque again. The Turkish government say all the Byzantine mosaics will be respected and treasured. Even so, it is a provocative move, it is not as though Istanbul is short of mosques. I believe the building would be best cared for by those for whom its history and beauty were primary concerns. But my opinion counts for....]

See Istanbul (1) The Blue Mosque, Haghia Sophia and the Bosphorus (2011)

The remainder of this post is in two sections linked by Istanbul the capital of the Ottoman Empire that took Islam into Europe, and along with Persia (now Iran) into the Caucasus.

Mosques in the Caucusus

Featured mosques in the first section are in Baku, Tbilisi, and Yerevan the capitals of the south Caucasus republics,
and in Șamaxi 120km west of Baku (so pretty well on the red ring)

Azerbaijan

Whether the three former soviet republics south of the Caucasus are European states is debatable. Armenia and Georgia think they are, and they do feel European, FIFA thinks all three are but Azerbaijan, the only majority Muslim state among them - and in many ways a detached corner of Asian Turkey - is more ambivalent.

Over 90% of Azeris identify as Muslims, but for many that identification is more cultural and ethnic than religious; after decades of state atheism as part of the USSR, they are not that bothered.

The Muhammed or Siniggala Mosque, Baku

The Siniggala Mosque claims to be the oldest in Baku, dating from the 11th century, though it appears to be a more recent building constructed on ancient foundations. Siniggala (damaged tower) refers to the, now repaired minaret. Stubby but still imposing in the densely packed low-rise Old City, it survives from the original mosque. During the Russo-Persian War (1722-3) a squadron of Russian warships demanded Baku’s surrender. Refusal was followed by a bombardment and the minaret was hit. The sudden storm that then blew the ships out of range was clearly a divine intervention, so the minaret was left untouched for many years.

The Muhammad (or Broken Tower) Mosque, Baku

see Baku (2); The Qobustan Petroglyphs and the Old City (2014)

Friday Mosque, Şamaxı

Şamaxı is a small town 120km west of Baku. The Friday Mosque is sometimes called the second-oldest mosque in the trans-Caucasus but it looks surprisingly new.

Şamaxı Friday Mosque

The first mosque on this site was built in the 8th century, but seismic activity and marauding Georgians and Armenians have seen off a few versions of the building. An early 20th century reconstruction designed by Józef Plośko, a St Petersburg trained Polish architect (and not the only Christian to design a mosque in these posts) forms the basis of the current building, though the major 2011 restoration encouraged Lonely Planet to call it a ’21st century masterpiece.’

Mihrab, Şamaxı Friday Mosque

See Baku to Şǝki(2014)

Armenia

Blue Mosque, Yerevan

Armenia claims to have been the first country to make Christianity its state religion when St. Gregory the Illuminator converted King Tiridates III in 301. However, Armenia is a small country and has spent much of its history wedged between the Ottoman, Russian and Persian empires, so foreign rulers came and went. The Blue Mosque was built in 1765–1766 by Hussein Ali Khan when Yerevan was the capital of his Persian Khanate. It was secularised in 1920 by the communist regime, but was re-opened in 1996 after the fall of the Soviet Union. Armenia has a Muslim population of under 1,000, mainly of Iranian descent, and this is the country’s only mosque.

The Blue Mosque, Yerevan - very Iranian in style

It sits unobtrusively in a dip beside the central Mashtots Avenue, so even the minaret hardly breaks the skyline. It is not generally open, but we asked the nice man in the Iranian tourist office near the entrance and he gave us the key. That was in 2003, I suspect they may be more security conscious now.

Blue Mosque minaret, Yerevan

Georgia

Georgia is another small Christian country that received unwanted attention from surrounding empires. Tbilisi was (off and on) the capital of an Iranian vassal monarchy from the 16th until the 18th century when the Georgians sought Russian support to free themselves. Like others who sought such help, they soon found themselves annexed by Tsarist Russia.

Jumah Mosque, Tbilisi

As part of the Soviet Union, Tbilisi retained a Shia and a Sunni mosque until 1951 when the Sunni mosque was demolished to make way for a bridge. The surviving Shi-ite Jumah Mosque took in the homeless Sunnis and has become the only mosque in the world where Shia and Sunni Muslims worship side by side.

Jumah Mosque, Tbilisi

Tbilisi sits in a gorge, and the mosque is in a side-gorge above the thermal spring. Among the spas are the Orbeliani baths, which look more like a Persian mosque than the mosque itself. Pushkin described this as the ‘most luxurious place on earth’.

Orbeliani Baths, Tbilisi

See Tbilisi (2014)

Mosques in the Balkans

Islam expanded in this area under the Ottoman empire which entered Europe in 1453 and finally retreated to the bottom right hand corner in 1918. Featured Mosques are in the ringed cities except in North Macedonia, where Glumovo is very near Skopje and Prilep is south of the 'E'

Bulgaria

Eastern Orthodox Christianity has always been the dominant religion in Bulgaria but active membership has fallen steadily in recent years. About 8% of the population identify as Muslims, a small number for a country that was part of the Ottoman Empire for 500 years and has a border with Turkey.

Banya Bashi Mosque, Sofia

Sofia has one active mosque, but it is a big one. Unsurprisingly Turkish in style the Banya Bashi Mosque dates from 1566 and, like Istanbul’s Süleymaniye Mosque, was designed by Mimar Sinan. Clearly Sofia was an important city.

The Banya Bashi Mosque, Sofia

Banya Bashi is built beside and partly over Sofia’s thermal spring. The name means ‘Big Bath’ and you can collect the warm mineral water in the square outside.

The hot springs outside the Banya Bashi Mosque, Sofia

See Sofia and the Master of Boyana (2007)

Albania

Converting to Islam under the Ottoman Empire conferred distinct advantages, and some 70% of Albanians were Muslims by the time the empire folded in 1918. For 45 year after World War 2, a nominally communist dictatorship imposed militant atheism. Freedom of religion arrived in the 1990s and was met with displays of mass apathy. Although 57% identified as Muslim in the 2011 census, a 2008 study in Tirana found that 67% of declared Muslims and 55% of Christians were completely non-observant.

Many churches and mosques were destroyed under state atheism – the current freedom has seen no great rebuilding.

The Et’hem Bey Mosque, Tirana

Et'hem Bey Mosque, Tirana

One mosque, though does have particular significance. The early 19th century Et’hem Bey Mosque sits in a corner of Tirana’s central Skanderbeg Square. Scheduled for demolition in the 1960s, it somehow never happened. In 1991 the mosque reopened without the authority’s permission. When 10,000 attended Friday prayers on the 18th of January 1991 and the police did nothing, it was a signal that the old regime had capitulated.

Et'hem Bey has the slimmest of pencil slim minarets,  typical of Balkan mosques.

See Tirana (2019)

North Macedonia

Like their close cousins the Bulgarians, ethnic Macedonians are almost entirely Eastern Orthodox Christians (though whether practising or not is another matter), but they only comprise 64% of the population. Around 30% are Muslims including the vast majority of the substantial ethnic Albanian community. Ironically the best-known Macedonian Albanian (though she was born in the days of the Ottoman Empire) was the Roman Catholic Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Skopje has a few grand mosques, as befits a capital, several understated churches from Ottoman times, and a big modern cathedral, but I will start with a village mosque.

Glumovo Mosque, Near Skopje

Glumovo (it’s better than it sounds) is only 10km outside Skopje. For a village of 1,683 (2002 census) it has a huge mosque, but as 1,646 of those people are Albanians and most of the rest are Muslim Bozniaks, perhaps it needs it.

Glumovo Mosque

Pencil slim minarets are a feature of mosques in the Balkans, and Glumovo has two of the finest.

See The Matka Canyon and Stobi (2015)

Čarši Mosque, Prilep

Although Prilep, 100km south of Skopje, is North Macedonia’s 4th largest city, it has only 70,000 inhabitants. Unlike Glumovo its Muslim population is relatively small.

Macedonia achieved independence in 1991 without firing a shot, but in 2001 the Kosovo conflict spilt over into northern Macedonia with elements of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) trying to inspire ethnic Albanian Macedonians to fight for a 'greater Albania'. For six months until a UN brokered settlement there was considerable fighting along the Kosovan border. On the 7th of August 2001 ten Macedonian soldiers, all from Prilep, were killed in a KLA ambush on the Skopje-Tetovo road. Protests on the 8th turned into riots and Prilep’s 15th century mosque was burned down. None of Prilep's Albanian population were implicated in the atrocity which happened 80km away.

Prilep's burned out mosque

In 2015 the failure of local and national authorities to sanction the rebuilding remained a bone of contention. It seems it still is.

See Prilep and Bitola (2015)

Bosnia and Herzegovina

If Prilep gives a taste of the destruction of the Balkans war, Bosnia provides a surfeit. In 2012 the buildings of Sarajevo were still pock-marked by bullets, but the worst destruction we saw was in Mostar. Nationalism waved its magic wand and families who had been neighbours, and even friends, for generations suddenly turned to killing each other. I find it difficult to understand; there is nothing special about the people of Mostar, so perhaps it could happen anywhere

Before the war the city’s population was, roughly 20% Serb (Eastern Orthodox Christians), 40% Bosniak (Muslims) and 40% Croat (Roman Catholic Christians).

The initial Serb siege destroyed the Catholic Cathedral, the Franciscan monastery, the bishop’s palace and library, and 14 mosques. After they were repulsed the Croats showed the same Christian spirit by destroying the orthodox cathedral, three churches and a monastery – and all but one of the 13 surviving Ottoman era mosques. Eventually in 1993 in an act of symbolic vandalism they destroyed Mostar’s emblematic bridge.

Mostar Bridge, Built 1557-66 by the Ottomans, destroyed 1993, rebuilt 2001-3 by Turkish craftsmen 

The Karađozbeg Mosque, Mostar

The Karađozbeg Mosque is not the largest or finest, but it has been serving its community on the left bank of the Neretva, the Muslim quarter of Mostar, since 1577. The war left it with a gaping hole in the dome and the stump of a minaret. It is now fully restored and open to worshippers and anyone else who wishes to pop in.

Karađozbeg Mosque, Mostar

See Mostar (2012)

The expanding Ottoman Empire swallowed Bosnia in 1460. Sarajevo was founded the following year as the administrative capital for the new Ottoman province and duly acquired an array of mosques to suit its status.

The Alipašina Mosque, Sarajevo

The Alipašina Mosque, Sarajevo, built 1561
Unlike churches mosques only occassionally have an associated graveyard 

In 1991 Sarajevo became the capital of the freshly independent Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and was promptly surrounded by Serb forces trying to carve out a new Republika Srpska. The Siege of Sarajevo, April 1992 to December 1995, was the longest siege of the 20th century. 14,000 died, 5,500 of them civilians, 1,500 of those children.

Situated in a narrow valley closed at one end, Sarajevo was perfectly designed for a siege. Many of the Muslim dead are buried in the Martyr’s Cemetery which flows down the head of the valley. One evening we walked up to the Ottoman Yellow Bastion above the cemetery from where we could see the city laid out before us.

I could not count the mosques at the time, but I have found 18 minarets in the photograph (ringed in red). The Serbian Orthodox and Catholic Cathedrals (yellow) also stand out as does the bilious yellow cube of the Holiday Inn (blue) overlooking the notorious ‘Sniper’s Alley. As dusk fell the call from mosques started, not all together, but first one, than another, then a third. The sound swelled as more and more joined in, then gradually started to ebb until eventually there was one lone voice. It was a magnificent sound.

The Mosques and Cathedral of Sarajevo (and the Martyr's Cemetary) 2012

A friend who visited in the 1970s described Sarajevo as a perfect multi-cultural city, with people of different traditions living and working together harmoniously. Then it all went wrong, and now it is being put back together. Humans are good at restoring things, be they bridges or communities; it's a pity they have to destroy them first.

See Sarajevo (1) The Old Town, The New Town and Assassination of Franz Ferdinand

and Sarajevo (2) The Siege 1992-1995