Shadows of a Forgotten World

One of the highlights of my trip to Tallinn was my unexpected tour of the Ukrainian church and Ukrainian Cultural Center . The cultural center is located in a beautiful 14th  c entury building located within the medieval walls of Tallinn ’s Old Town . The center includes a museum, which was created “ t o help preserve disappearing cultures. ” The  museum  showcases Ukrainian arts and crafts, as well as exhibits from  Estonia, Russia, and the United States. The Grusbeke Tower , located about 25 meters from the center, now belongs to the center and has a collection of hand-made mechanical toys, as well as two wooden looms that are still used.   A n integral part of the Ukrain ia n Cultural Center is the Labora Workshops . M edieval arts and crafts   are taught and made with help of tools from the 19th and early 20th centuries . The center also promotes Ukrainian culture by offering workshops in making Ukrainian crafts. ...

Although not nearly to the same extent as in Tallinn, remnants of the merchants' hoisting mechanisms remain on several of the medieval houses in Riga.                                                                                   a granary from the 18th century

Tallinn ’s Old Town used to be an important trading city on the coast of the Baltic Sea . Fortunately, a majority of the medieval buildings have survived, including many of the merchants’ houses. The attic spaces—and sometimes several of the upper floors—of these houses were used to store the merchants’ goods. The merchandise was hoisted to the storage areas with ropes, which were wound by winches. The storage levels had special portals for the goods to enter. Wooden beams were attached to the buildings above the openings to guide the rope. Quite a few of these protruding beams and portals remain in the city. Some of the beams have ropes and hooks, but these are probably more recent. diagram of the inside of a house with winch, protruding beam, and portals Now a restaurant called Peppersack. Shows how the merchandise may have looked when it was being hoisted. here three floors were used for storage, as one can see from the portals   ...

I visited two villages where an ancestor of mine lived/worked. The villages are about an hour from Ivano-Frankivsk and are seperated by the Dniester River. We had to hitch a boat ride from Koropets to the other side of the river and then walk through the village Luha before making it Deleva. Here is a boot scraper located outside the old wooden church (1795) in Koropets. Badeni Palace (1893-1906) in disrepair  

Traces of Stanisławów's prewar and Polish past: Polish-language street sign conscription number company from Lviv bootscraper bootscraper tracks for transporting coal

Pre-Soviet manhole covers in Ivano-Frankivsk (Stanisławów) From an interview with Tadeusz Olszański about Stanisławów: “The Soviet government did everything possible to erase all traces of Polish culture. Churches and synagogues were destroyed. Our cities fell to ruin…The Soviets, however, failed to obliterate many traces of Polish culture. I was moved to discover the inscription Jaworski & Sons on manhole covers and street lamps, on the iron benches in parks. And in many different places, which have been carefully restored by the city.” First two: R. Jawowski i Synowie  Stanisławów "Fabryka Maszyn Br. Biskupscy sa w Kołomyi"  ( Biskupski Brothers Machine Factory in Kołomyia) One of the brothers was Lublin Biskupski (1840-1916), a soldier of the January Uprising and later owner of a machine factory in Kołomyja, industrialist, and merchant.

Modern hand-painted signs in Ivano-Frankivsk. Cukiernia Lviv Chocolate Factory Cafe and Store In Polish: Pierogarnia (place that sells pierogi) and Sala Bankietowa (banquet room)

Ivano-Frankivsk, formerly Stanisławów or Stanislaviv, is a small historic city about 2.5 hours south-east of Lviv, located at the foothills of the Carpathians. It was built in the mid-17th century as a private fortress. Along with Lviv, in 1772 it became part of the Austrian Empire, then part of the Second Polish Republic in the interwar period, and then it fell under the Soviet Union. Some Polish-language signage and a few other relics from the pre- and interwar period can still be found in the city. Cafe Edison Café Edison was opened in 1904. From an article about Passage Gartenbergów and Café Edison: "The café underwent different fates, together with the city. Today it does not exist. A few years ago, when the facade of the building was being renovated, an old inscription was revealed, which was last displayed in the interwar period. The owners who own the space of the former cafe decided to keep it. Praise them for it!" Now it is a bank. A former restaurant...