my journey to the Alphabet Land (day M)

My next post for the Alphabet Hunt challenge by @barbara-orenya. This week we were searching for the words starting with letter "M". An easy and pleasurable quest, as there exist hundreds and thousands of good M-things.

But before I start, look at these cool M-bisquits I have found during my word hunting this week. They were very tasty ;)

M — Moderne / Mascarons

My city of St.Petersburg is unofficially named 'The North Venice', and theres a lot of truth in it (except of the sunny weather). Its historical center is full of splendid architectural Masterpieces and is a great place for everyday walks and tourism. This apartment building is one of them -- unfortunately located too far from the city areas I use to pass by. Moderne, also named as 'the Jugendstyle' or 'Art Nuovo' is my fave style, I am in love with it since I knew it. Sufficient districts of the city that developed at the beginning of XIX century, were created along the guides of this style. I wish I could inhabit one of the flats in this house, but unfortunately it is totally out of the question until I earn money with a decent labour of my own hands.

In the past I've published quite a few posts with Mascarons, so my followers might know what it is: buildings' decorations in the shape of heads... not necessarily human heads :)

Once my wife and me laid our hands on a real mascaron -- we received it from our acquaintances who worked at a restoration workshop. Luckily, I had camera with me, and captured a few fantastic Memorable shots.

M — Malady

There are more or less well-known words, such as ill, illness and disease, but there is also Malady that stands in their shade; it has quite a certain semantics: its not something serious leading to death that can be cured -- rather a disfunction. This leaf definitely has a Malady.

M — Mermaid

Mermaid is the main element of Warshava's coat of arms. Once I have been there, I saw a lot of it in the streets decore elements, like lightposts, trash-bins, etc. The only two souvenirs I brought back from my travel there, were a little paper blocknote, and a Magnet with this coat of arms -- its beautiful! (I look at it every day because it is sitting on my PC' case). Sadly, I cant take a picture as I am here and magnet is there :P Would be cool to have one more M double-shot, but its nothing I can do about it... but I found a streetphoto of Warshava's mermaid for you. Isnt it lovely?

I do not have silver coins with mermaids (I wish I had!) so I inserted what I have -- maybe to entertain @silversaver888 a little bit... and all of the community, of course, too. Its so much fun to find things not in the proper places :))

M — Meditation

This Meditation I captured at the Ladoga skerries. The man you see in this frame, hewas a great teammate; he acquainted us with pu-er, he showed me how to use kayak (see my previous K-post), he played flute, one day he cooked for all of our big team a pile of pancakes (we ate them with freshly harvested blueberries! it was extazy) which were made in the field conditions, right on a campfire ... which is not that easy, akin to a feat! All in one, he was an exceptional person, after 8 years I still keep the warmest Memories about him.

M — Memory

More of my Warshava shots here. My visit to the city was brief and transit, but I visited just one museum: Muzeum Więzienia Pawiak, memorial museum of Pawiak, which for many years was the main Polish jail, and played especially sad role during the WW2. During the war it was destroyed ( only a few fragments remained: part of the walls and gates survived, as well as the elm inside the prison). Poles turned it into museum and preserved the memory of the place with a very unique and creative touch. I will be a very bad storyteller (if anyone intrested welcome to the wiki page).

A little bit of history, just in two words. Right after the city was liberated, the relatives of the deceased prisoners in Pawiak attached plaques with their names to this elm tree... the dead tree eventually was sawn into pieces (which are also kept in the museum) and its copy stands in the open-air square, with a lot of plaques hanging on it. The inside space of museum has thousands of martyr's photos and names -- all of them are listed there on the walls... and their occupations, as well. I was so much impressed with it, especially as I havent seen anything like that back in Russia... The history indicates that my poor Motherland definitely has a different attitude to a single human life. Uniqueness of one person and his life are valued here apparently about zero -- and it is not communist's invention... :(

I wasnt allowed to take pictures indoors, which became an irritating thing to me, as I wanted to bring back home the memory of this place. Well, I did a few shots outside, and they served a good crutch / support to my memory.