Synagogues in Krakow, Kochi (Cochin) and Sofia

Three Synagogues, One Each in Poland, India and Bulgaria

Synagogues are different from the other places of worship I have written about (see the Religious Buildings Page - soon). Churches, mosques and temples may be dedicated to the glory of God, but they are most usually built by the powerful to demonstrate their wealth and power. Other than in present day Israel, Jews have always been a minority. Synagogues have not been built by the powerful, and there has always been a feeling, even in times of security, that an ostentatious synagogue would be a hostage to fortune.

We have come across surprisingly few synagogues in our travels, and even fewer that welcomed visitors. We have been inside only two (two of the three in this post) and neither were functioning synagogues. But this little thread on religious buildings would be incomplete without them, and they so often have interesting, or terrible, stories to tell.

The Old Synagogue, Kazimierz, Krakow, Poland

In medieval times Jewish and Polish citizens of Krakow lived together peaceably. Relations deteriorated in the 15th century and in 1495 the Jews were expelled from Krakow and sent to the nearby city of Kazimierz. The Old Synagogue, built soon after, is the oldest surviving synagogue in Poland. Damaged by fire in 1557, it was promptly reconstructed in Renaissance style.

Lynne outside the Old Synagogue, Kazimierz

Krakow expanded and absorbed Kazimierz, which became a Jewish suburb. Co-existence was sometimes more, sometimes less peaceful, at least until 1939.

The Old Synagogue is now The Museum of History and Culture of Krakow Jewry. It charts a steady progress from the middle ages to the early 20th century. The later pictures show prosperous and confident people, pillars of Krakow society. The people in the pictures had no idea how the story would end, those of us looking at them could think of little else.

Next day we went to Auschwitz; you can read about that here. We revisited Kazimierz that evening. The Jewish community numbered 70,000 in 1939, today there are 150. With Krakow’s tourist boom Kazimierz is enjoying a renaissance and restaurants serving Jewish food surround the old square. We sat outside the Café Ariel eating jellied carp and tcholent stew. It was Friday and men wearing yarmulkas strolled in the square greeting friends. As dusk fell they drifted towards one or other of the two remaining synagogues. I wondered why they had stayed in Krakow, but I had neither the language nor the impertinence to ask. Even in the worst days there were oases of sanity, the factory of Oscar Schindler lay just across the river from where we sat.

Outside the Café Ariel, Kazimierz

As night fell children danced outside the synagogue singing traditional songs in a joyous affirmation of the survival of an ancient culture.

The Pardesi Syngogue,Kochi, Kerala

Matancherry lies immediately south of the old colonial Fort Kochi. It contains the rather understated Raja’s Palace, the largely redundant Kochi International Pepper Exchange – spices are now traded on-line - and the Pardesi Synagogue.

Matancherry, Kochi

Built in 1568 and rebuilt in 1664 the synagogue is famous for its richly decorated interior with its hand painted blue and white Cantonese tiles. Sadly photography is not appreciated inside.

The Pardesi Synagogue, Matancherry

This may be a synagogue unconnected to the Holocaust, but that does not mean that Kochi maintains a thriving Jewish community. It was never large and somehow, over the last century or so, Kochi’s Jews have either drifted away – often to Israel– or become assimilated by the local community. They have left their synagogue as a reminder of their presence.

The Central Synagogue, Sofia, Bulgaria,

Having sidestepped the Holocaust for number 2, there is now little option but to return to it. I could have written about the slaughter in the Baltics and included the last surviving synagogue in Vilnius, or the chilling preserved remains of the Great Synagogue in Riga, burnt down in July 1941 with over a hundred worshippers inside. Instead, I have chosen a different Holocaust story.

Sofia’s central syngogue is a large, solid building; a construction of confidence and permanence. There was some justification for the confidence, but permanence was not to be.

The central synagogue, Sofia

The Bulgarians chose the wrong side in World War Two, though less out of conviction than political necessity. Jews had always lived peacefully in Bulgaria and even the fascist government saw no good reason to change that. When ordered to round up and deport Bulgaria’s Jews to the death camps they prevaricated, prevaricated again and kept on prevaricating until the war was over.

The communist regime that followed proved less than sympathetic so after watching the Holocaust sweep round them but not over them, Sofia’s Jewish community upped sticks and set off for Israel. There is enough of a community left to maintain and look after the building, but not so many that it can remain a functioning synagogue.

Images of Mao

The Cultural Revolution Made Images of Mao Problematic for the Chinese State

Although the Communist Party remains very much in control, China today is Communist in name only. Unlike the Russians, who have never really embraced capitalism and will often express nostalgia for the Soviet Union, the Chinese are natural entrepreneurs and too busy prospering to ever glance backwards. Most Russian towns still have a Lenin Street and a Karl Marx Street, and their statues are easy to find, but for the Chinese, Mao Zedong is more problematic.

Jung Chang and Jon Holliday’s lengthy biography Mao: The Untold Story presents a man without ideology, without vision and without charisma. It is easy to accept that Mao’s attitude to his people was inhumanly callous, and he was indifferent to the mass starvation caused in the 1950’s by his Great Leap Forward, but it is hard to believe that a man with absolutely no personal qualities beyond a certain low cunning could have attained the pre-eminence he did.

The Chinese do not readily talk politics with foreigners, but anyone will happily tell you that the Cultural Revolution, unleashed by Mao in 1966, was a disaster. The current leadership has no truck with personality cults and are perhaps conscious of Mao’s shortcomings, but they cannot bring themselves to ditch him completely. Officially he is not even to blame for the Cultural Revolution, the aging leader was led astray by the Gang of Four.

Image of Chairman Mao on Banknotes

Nobody in China brandishes Mao’s Little Red Book any more, but everybody carries his portrait with them, indeed several portraits, as his face appears on every banknote from 1 Yuan up.

Mao on the 100 Yuan note

Chairman Mao outside the Forbidden City, Beijing

He also smiles down on Tiananmen Square from the entrance to the Forbidden City – no longer forbidden, provided you can afford the entrance fee. I have no idea who the other man in this photograph is, but he is in my holiday picture, and I am in his. Good luck to him.

Mao, me and another bloke, Tiananmen Square, Beijing 2007

At the other end of the square Mao lies embalmed in his mausoleum and we paid him a visit in 2004. Since then we have seen Lenin in Moscow and plan to visit Ho Chi Minh next month [Update: We saw Ho, read about it here. And in 2013 Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il in North Korea]. I might produce a single ‘Embalmed Leaders’ post one day.[still waiting for that one].

The queue for Mao's Mausoleum, Tiananmen Square

China is a huge country and there are large parts of it we are unfamiliar with, but in our Chinese travels we have encountered only three statues of Mao.

Chairman Mao
Kashgar, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region August 2008

Kashgar is as far west as you can go and still be in China; it is due north of Pakistan and as near to Beirut as it is to Beijing. Kashgar is in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region where the inhabitants, are largely Uighurs, a Turkic people of Central Asia. They do not look Chinese, they do not eat Chinese and they do not speak or read Chinese - the Uighur language is written in Arabic script. The purpose of the colossal statue is to remind the often rebellious Uighurs exactly who is in charge. His clothing might be appropriate for the harsh Kashgar winter, but we were there in July when the temperature was nearer 30, and he looked distinctly overdressed. As a sculpture it seems crude (and why is he staring at his hand?) but the message is obvious. That was written in 2012. Now, under President Xi, it has been decided that oppression by statue is not enough.

Mao in Kashgar, wrapped up warm and staring at his hand

Chairman Mao and Kurban Tulum
Hotan, Xinjiang Uigher Autinomous Region August 2008

Driving a couple of hundred kilometres east with the Taklamakan desert to our north and the foothills of the Tibetan plateau to our south, brought us to the ancient silk making city of Hotan. Much of the old Uighur city was redeveloped in 2004 but its centrepiece remains this statue of Mao with a man called Kurban Tulum.

Mao, Kurban Tulum and me, Hotan

Born near Hotan in 1883 Kurban Tulum had lived his life under the yoke of the Qing emperors and then under a series of warlords, so was delighted when Mao won the civil war and established communist rule. To show his pleasure he loaded his donkey cart with fruit as a gift for the Chairman and set off for Beijing. Only at Urumqi, 1500 km later, did he encounter his first paved road. His efforts so impressed the local party chief that he wired head office and Kurban was promptly flown to Beijing to meet Mao. Whether they forwarded what must by then have been his rather wilted fruit is not recorded.

To the Chinese Kurban Tulum is the model Uighur, to the Uighurs he is a model traitor. To a neutral, anybody from Hotan who sets off for Beijing with a donkey cart full of fruit sounds a sandwich short of a picnic.

This statue in Hotan, and a smaller replica in Kurban Tulum’s home village, are, reputedly, the only statues in China where Mao ever shared a plinth with another human being.

Chairman Mao
Chengdu, Sichuan Province Aug 2005

The statue in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, is the only one we have encountered in a Han dominated city. It was retained when the city centre was remodelled and Mao stands rather aloof, ignoring and being ignored by the circling traffic. He is probably being eaten away by pollution, which may be symbolic, but I am sure he will stand there for many years yet.

Mao in Chengdu

Eccleshall and Cop Mere: Cowpat Walk No. 2

A Circular Walk based on The Star at Copmere End

Staffordshire

Stafford Borough

Once upon a time Eccleshall (Eccle-shall is the unlikely but correct pronunciation) consisted of a manor house on the north bank of the River Sow and a single east-west street running down to the church on the other side of the river. This was enough for the several dozen people who lived here in 1068. Eccleshall’s population now exceeds 6,000 so it could be a small town but feels like a large village. All subsequent development has been to the south but that original single street is still the main street, so Eccleshall’s centre is, paradoxically, on the very edge of the village.

Eccleshall to Ellenhall

We started outside the church. The present edifice, built on the site of the Domesday church in the 13th century, is large and self-important, as befits the last resting place of six bishops of Lichfield.

Holy Trinity, Eccleshall

Cop Mere – our intended lunch stop - is only two kilometres to the west, so to make it a full morning we took a less than direct route. We started by walking round the edge of Eccleshall in a south easterly direction. It was a cold crisp day with a pale blue cloudless sky; it looked good, but we needed to get moving to keep warm.

Outside the village we passed Johnson Hall. There has been a manor house on this site since the 12th century, but the present building is 16th century (with an 1883 makeover).

Johnson Hall, Eccleshall

Leaving the grounds of Johnson Hall......

Leaving the grounds of Johnson Hall

....we crossed the A519 and made our way by lane and field path to the village of Ellenhall.

Field paths to Ellenhall

Ellenhall’s 300 inhabitants have no shop, pub or post office, but they do have a church and that church has seats in the churchyard so, although it was a little early, it seemed a good spot for coffee. The church is much more modest than Eccleshall’s; its oldest sections are 12th century, but the tower is a 1757 rebuild.

St Mary's Ellenhall

The low January sun was generating a little warmth, so it was a pleasant place to sit, although, after an hour’s walking we were now twice as far away from our intended lunch stop as we had been at the start.

Alison and Francis have coffee in the weak sunshine

Ellenhall to Cop Mere

Refreshed, we left the village via the grounds of the tautologically named Ellenhall Hall. It does not seem a particularly old building, though there has been a manor house somewhere in the village since the 16th century.

Lee makes a friend

A long, very gentle descent took us down to Lodge Farm and a string of fish ponds, and an even more gentle rise brought us back to the A519 near the hamlet of Whitely Heath. Crossing the main road we headed down Cash Lane. A row of churns had been placed on the verge outside a farm for decoration. Seeing milk churns awaiting collection on roadside stands was commonplace in my youth. At some point, probably in the late sixties, they disappeared, though I think it was some thirty years before I had noticed they had gone.

Milk churns beside Cash Lane

Turning off Cash Lane, field paths took us to Horsley Farm before another lane and more field paths brought us to the small road down to Copmere End. There seemed an inordinate number of stiles on this walk and many of them tricky to negotiate, being above steep banks down to slippery footbridges or hemmed in with hawthorn or in poor repair.

Another awkward stile

Lunch in The Star at Copmere End

The Star at Copmere End is the sort of country pub that has been fast disappearing over the last decade. The Star, though, is very much open and was busy. Perhaps it shows that if the landlord can get the food, the beer and the welcome right, country pubs can still be viable businesses.

Lunch in the Star, Copmere End

Copmere End stands beside Cop Mere, but as the lake is roughly circular I struggle to see how it can have an ‘end’. Like Aqualate Mere, Cop Mere is glacial in origin - a shallow scoop in the Staffordshire clay made by retreating ice.

Cop Mere

Following the River Sow from Copmere

Leaving the pub we walked half way round the Mere to its north edge before heading up across Sugnall Park to the B5026.

Mile post beside the B5026

Crossing the road we wandered up, across and then down Sugnall Hill before turning east and heading along the northern edge of the flood plain of the River Sow.

The 25 km long Sow (pronounced as in female pig) may not be one of the world’s great rivers but does have the distinction of being the longest river entirely contained within the Borough of Stafford. It rises at Fairoak, flows into and out of Cop Mere then through Eccleshall and Stafford before joining the Trent at Shugborough.

The flood plain of the Sow

Eccleshall Castle

Eccleshall Castle was some 500 m away at this point, and although we eventually walked right past it, this distant view was the best we had. A manor house on the site was originally fortified in 1200. It became a residence of the Bishop of Lichfield, played a walk-on part in the Wars of the Roses and was besieged and taken by Parliamentarian forces in 1643. After the Civil War, the castle was destroyed. The current house, built among the ruins some 50 years later, is privately owned - and remarkably difficult to see.

Back to Eccleshall

Over The Sow and Back to Eccleshall Church

We re-entered Eccleshall across the Sow bridge. Eccleshall may be twinned with Sancerre, but that does not mean it produces wine of any great quality – or indeed at all. Beyond the bridge we crossed the water meadows back to our starting point by Eccleshall church.

Across the water meadows to Eccleshall church

[Note on Cowpat Walk numbers: Francis thinks this was Cowpat 4, I have called it Cowpat 2. I have a long and complex justification for this which is far too tedious to bother with here. What it boils down to is: my blog, my numbers.]

The Cowpats
 

1 Ironbridge Gorge

2 Eccleshall and Cop Mere

3 Swynnerton to Whitmore

4 Biddulph, The Cloud and Rushton Spencer

5 Shutlingsloe and Danebridge

6 Crowdecote
7 Scaling the Mighty Weaver Hills

 8 Morridge and Onecote
9 Codsall
10 The Roaches and Lud's Church