Malta. Carnival chivalrous
Carnival opens the tourist season, which, however, in Malta and does not end. "Remarkable people, the Maltese! – I wrote one reader "traveler", visited the "honey island". – They say that there is hardly in the Mediterranean there is a different kind of people who would so openly and warmly welcomed visitors. Ethnographers explain this natural southern friendliness, multiplied by a heightened sense of mutual aid, inherited from the English Maltese. And in general, the British brought to the island a lot of good, which is very highly valued Maltese.
Once Malta was part of a natural bridge between Europe and Africa. In the grotto to the south-east of the island, archaeologists have found the remains of dwarf elephants, hippos and giant, with horse, swan – it says that two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, the island was still linked to Sicily, but cut off from Africa, Animal care from the glacier remained here and perished due to lack of fresh water and food. Now clear days visible Sicily from Malta, they are separated by about eighty kilometers.
In 1530, from Emperor Charles V Malta received Lennaya Possession of the Knights, obliged to protect Mediterranean Morse and its coast from African Corsaars, from the Turk of Mighty at that time of the Ottoman Empire. During the reign of the Great Master of La Valletta, the Turks were besieged by Malta, the forty-fighters of their troop Maltese Order could oppose only seven hundred knights and seven and a half thousand soldiers. Veliky Magister prayed Christian states about help, but no one responded. And then the knights themselves decided to reflect the invasion. Many days and nights went the battle, the knights lost two hundred forty people and died five thousand soldiers, but in Turkish troops losses were much more significant, about twenty thousand, and the Turks left the coast of Malta. Such a brilliant victory inxicated knights, they drank on the mainland and in the castles on the island, and on this tightened for many years the feast began between knights of different nationalities, already the National Assembly. We went to the Cathedral of John the Baptist. Under the inlated slabs, the remains of the knights are resting there. Almost all of them died young.
After. As in 1799, the Great Master of Gompeysh, without a fight of the Malta who surrendered Malta, the Knights were deprived of Sana, Paul was elected to the great masters. The Russian emperor with hunting and pride laid on his knightly mantle, crown, sword and cross (in such a robe he is depicted in the portrait in the Winter Palace).
According to Paul, 1 Maltese Order, so long and successfully fought against the enemies of Christianity – Mohammedan, was supposed to hug all the best security elements of Europe and serve as a powerful stronghold against revolutionary movements. In Kronstadt, the fleet was already equipped for a hike – but the British were ahead, in 1800 they took the island, and only in 1964 Malta gained independence. The last British soldier took place in 1979. Who knows that it would be with Malta, if on the night of March 11 to 12, 1801, Nikolay Dentov did not hit the emperor Paul 1 Petrovich in the temple with severe gold tobacco. Perhaps, "Honey Island" would be part of the Russian Empire for the Rights of the province – and no doubt would very soon cease to be "Medov".
From the British remained tongue (second state. And the first is Maltese, in which there are many from Arabic, Italian, German): Gorgeous roads and left-sided movement remained. In April 1942, German and Italian aircraft bombed in Malta English airfields. The thousand millionth bomb fell into the center of the dome of the Round Temple of the Assumption of the Virgin, in which Sunday service was going, but did not explode – it was considered a miracle. Now a huge bomb lies in the temple as a monument. And during the time of the war, twenty thousand houses were destroyed and thousands of Maltesers were killed who did not have attitudes. In a huge aviation hangar. Where are English fighters and bombers, now work wizards. We got great pleasure, watching their creativity.
Those who have the opportunity to spend on "Honey Island" Honeymoon. You can only envy. How sweet it would be, sleeping under the noise of waves. Wake up early in the morning in one of the grapes. Surrounded by a fence from blooming cacti and bougainvillee of white houses with blinds on windows, with a stone floor, preserving coolness, breakfast stuffed with olives, fried mussels, drink coffee with marzipan and go to sunbathing, swimming or asked for fishermen boat-DGAYS with an old Egyptian fishermen God of Oziris, the wader of the seurrets, and to go fishing opposite the rocks or hunting with a sea gun, and then dine in a small coastal restaurant than the sea and in the evening, when it feels heat, the shadows are dispelled, and the shadows come down, come to the fortress – Vittoriyomo, Coupika, Sandley – or rise to the city of silence, Mdina, laid in the center of the island on the hill Arab conquerors, and wander through her narrow-pitched streets between the palaces decorated with the names of noble Norman birth, hoping that even before the onset of darkness, in greenish-lilac warm twilight will seem in The skeleton of the end of the face of the Lady Ringa with beautiful, but cold features, and soon, disturbing centuries Oe silence, the lats will raise, cares for a paving hooves and the brave knight will appear, deprived of inheritance-Ayvengo.
Medina Cathedral has two dials. One shows the right time, the other is wrong. Maltese assure that it is possible to deceive the devil, "so that he did not know when his hour comes". They say the cathedral was built by the Normans on the place where Villa was located Patricia Pubpia, who welcomed the Apostle Paul in Malta, a miraculously surviving in shipwreck. The public was the first Maltese who accepted baptism – he believed in the New Testament, when Paul healed his elderly father from the hot. Thus, the Roman governor became the first Bishop of Malta, which Nero could not forgive himself. Patricia was captured and thrown into the pit with lions. But the hungry lions only licked to public Sandals.
Paul cleared the island from poisonous snakes, found sources of spring water. He lived in a cave, preaching the gospel (next to this cave, the first Maltese Christians dug a catacomb, calling them in honor of the Apostle). Three months later, when the sea calmed down, Paul headed to Rome – "towards the martyr’s death and immortality".
– Capital – Valletta. Located on the islands of Malta, Gozo, Cominotto. Comino, Philfla. Coastline length – 140 km. Total area – 316 kV.KM. Shores with low cliffs, coastal rocks.
– The population is 400,000 people. Residents of the island of Maltese – are descendants of Italians, French and Arabs. Two official languages - Maltese (based on the Latin alphabet, but vocabulary is borrowed from Arabic) and English. State Religion – Catholicism. Average life expectancy: men – 75 years old, women – 80 years.
– Climate – Mediterranean, with damp winter and hot dry summer, average annual temperature – about 19 degrees Celsius.
– Monetary Unit – Maltese Lira
– 1180 km of asphalt roads, movement – English. left-sided, accidents rarely happen and almost always with foreigners. Sanding behind the wheel (right), moreover, on the first day of driving in the island. We advise on time to forget the Russian habits and give way to the road both transport and pedestrians who rarely look around, passing the road, confident in tomorrow. Scandaling, yelling, run- not accepted. Do not understand. Smile more often.
