Shadows of a Forgotten World

These bilingual German and Czech street signs (some include descriptive house numbers) date from before WWI, likely before 1892 when the Czech-controlled City Hall decided to replace the city's bilingual street signs with exclusively Czech ones. 

Before Empress Maria Theresa introduced identifying numbers to Prague in 1770, houses were known and located by allegorical symbols. Many of them originally had alchemical significance. The Two Suns The Golden Key Castle goldsmiths lived in this house in the 17th century They paid fees to the city and thus were entitled to advertise their wares  The Red Lamb  The Three Fiddles A family of violin makers lived in this house in the early 18th century The Golden Wheel This alchemic symbols represents a stage in the magnus opus ,  the process by which lead purportedly turned into gold  The White Lion

Throughout the centuries many disastrous floods struck Prague. In particular, one such flood struck September 2-5, 1890. I came across a few memorial plaques which mark the level reached by the floodwaters. Výška vody  4. září 1890 Water level  4 September 1890

I recently visited Uzhhorod to see the blooming sakuras. Along with the beautiful sakuras I came across quite a few remnants of Uzhhorod's prewar past. I have two previous posts ( ghost signs  and more ) about Uzhhorod, so t o repeat what I wrote before,  Uzhhorod  (Ungvár  /  Užhorod  /  Ungwar) , a city in Transcarpathia (Zakarpattia Oblast of Ukraine), which is near the borders of Slovakia and Hungary, has a multicultural history. For a long time the region around Uzhhorod was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, later the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After WWI, it was annexed to Czechoslovakia. In 1938, Uzhhorod was transferred to Hungary, and in 1945 it was annexed by the Soviet Union. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the city became a regional capital in Ukraine. Manhole Covers K Blahut "tűzcsap" means hydrant in Hungarian Demeter Ungvar Demeter Zoltan Uzhorod Fire Hydrants I came across quite a few of these around the c...

Vinné sklepy a vinárna "Austria" Weinkellereien u. Weinzimer (Wine cellars and wine bar)