Remembering Carthage
Tunisia is a generally accepted edge of a massacre rest, write about which is even more rapid than to take part in it. But on the tourist map of the country there is a point capable of swimming and tanning add something normally. This Carthage is an ancient city-state, which once dominated almost half of the then world.
Carthage, as you know, was defeated by another great power – Rome and went into the fly. Here the place is to give will the imagination that begins to compare tirelessly "century current and century past".
Initially, you are tightened to the traditional set of local leaks, and you are badly obeying this inclusion. We are brought to the sugar, real with the endless vegans of the smallest overwhelming sand of the sand; demonstrate sunset, spectacle and really memorable; riding a dromader (single camel one); Satisfied safaris on jeeps, assuring that at the same time you commemorate to Rally Paris – Dakar; actively targeting the opportunity to see "Mirage in the desert", And you, a study, really see something. In El Jime, they will show a roomy and well-preserved Colosseum, but he does not make you very much, because you know that the Colosseum in the world is only one, in Rome, and everything else – the Colosses. Cool perceive you and mosque in Kairhan – "The fourth shrine islam", Because remember that the guide in Cyprus called "The fourth shrine" Mosque on the shore of the salt lake near Larnaca. All the same truth: only the first one, the rest is stamping.
Return to hotel, dinner. "They ate, sitting around the big dishes, have grabbed pieces of meat and sat in the pose of lions tearing prey. The surprise of new yokes was excited by the greed of pouring. they smiled widely from the joy that finally could find", – It seems that Flaubert painting in his "Salambo" Pir Varvarov, inner eyes saw and future conquerors of these places with wrist bracelets.
Human nature changes little, sometimes the whole materilometer Tunisian strip of sandy beaches with snow-white shallows and blue pools appears to be a huge chapter – sump for those who have today. Also Top (Sunset?) Civilization. Our tourist bus is rushing along a raid high-speed autobahn, and the pictures of life rush, what it was here and thousands of years ago: Well-groomed olive groves (65 million olive trees in the country, this "petrodollar" Tunisia and his pride); Solonchaki empty, on which Berbers walk the herds of sheep; Far in the south, real troglodites live in the mountain caves (though, with mobile phones and satellite TV).
About them our guide has an exclusive bike. "Once I spent an excursion for your famous policy of Zhirinovsky and his three satellites, – Guide overwhelms the pride from the successfulness of luck. – So, near the caves, where the photographing and recycling of dinars began, one of the troglodites in the picturesque rags, Boyko, was most actively and eloquently, Boyko, but with a strong emphasis that spoke Russian. Zhirinovsky somehow accurately looking at the oven, suddenly picked his finger in his chest: "Moscow, Moscow State University, Philfak!" And he, almost without an accent, mumbled confused "Yes, and how you guessed, Vladimir Wolfovich?", And then, already recovering, added "Here you have to work out by troglodite, the knowledge of the poetics of North African nationalities does not feed the family, and I have five". By the way, Zhirinovsky was also struck by the fact that he knew about Tunisia a lot, what I did not hear about. And his companions did not ask questions."
My own weekly experience led me to the conclusion that of all Russian surnames "Street" (taxi drivers, merchants, random passers-by) can only be called two – Putin and Sharapova, only they appear in local news TV programs, the rest – for intellectuals.
Enter the capital, its modern districts created French architects, intuitively seeking "Paris North Africa". Greens of local "Champs Elysees", crossing the city from the west to the east, the pretty Paris, there is, of course, and its own "Triumphal Arch". But there is also a small-sized "Big Ben", This is a reerant towards London. The city does not want to navigate some one metropolis.
And the basis of the foundations, as in all Tunisian cities, is Medina, "Centre", Old Town, which is a huge bazaar-labyrinth, discharged with yellow sandstone walls. The city is revived, benevolent, religious, state religion (Islam) quietly gets around with synagogues, Orthodox temples, Catholic churches. For the millennium, so many peoples were noted here – Berbers, Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, Spaniards, French, each with their beliefs – what to find the roots of something initial impossible. "I am a Muslim, but he studied in a French college at a Catholic monastery – parents wanted to give me the best education", – Says our guide.
Even in the first week, Ramadan stores do not stop work – Trade is also holy for Tunisians, in the veins of which Arab blood mixed with the Semitic blood of the Phoenicians – the greatest traders of antiquity. Tourists here are comfortable and deceased – neither terrorism, no robberies, no hooliganism, walk at least check. Perhaps the only irritating factor is the monotony of restaurant oriental music using no more than five notes, although, however, our pop in this respect is still saving. On TV All week there is a match of the match Tunisia Morocco, who brought tunisians to the final part of the world football championship.
The founder of an independent Tunisia (1956, the end of the colonial domination of France) and his first President Habib Burbiba, having spent two deadlines in his post, laid down by the Constitution, then established himself (of course, with nationwide approval) by life president. Completely in the spirit of local conflict and avoid unpredictable political cataclysms. Truth, "For life" did not work – in 82, due to sclerosis, he was still removed from the highest power. But for 31 years of its board managed to build some specific in the country "Dustovsky" socialism. Not paradise, not abundance, but still quite real defense of a simple person.
Foreign companies discovered all and provided tax breaks, but only with a mandatory condition: they should only give the work to the Tunisians and a third of the products produced to leave in the country. This nomudinal political economy, without Harvard delights, provides an average salary at a level of 350–500 dollars, and university professors – over $ 1,500; Almost 90 percent of the population have their own housing; retirement and men and women go to 60 years. It is not entirely clear whether the cave troglodites and worser bibrings are taken into account in these figures, and in addition, you pay attention to the fact that those who are encountered – taxi drivers, hotel administrators, waiters, maid, somehow very persistently torment any ways to lure you at least dinar (20 rubles), which is not very tugible with the stated average income. Official Statistics is always Lukavit.
But this is what you see in my opinion, so this is the youth of the nation: the same statistics argue that a third of the population under 15 years is 15 years old, and you have no doubt that in the middle of the day the streets are filled with schoolgirls and schoolchildren who graduated (by the way, school education here Strictly required and free of charge). And the average life expectancy is approaching "Japanese": 72 years old in men and 80 years in women; The main components of this achievement here are a healthy climate, ease of life, relative confliclicity (compared, for example, with neighboring Algeria) and the main thing – the famous olive oil.
On the way to Carthage, we will be taken to the Bardo Museum, it is impossible to miss. Here a mosaic is collected from all Tunisian excavations, its number, the size of the surviving fragments, the quality – amaze. The mosaic of the Egyptian Luxor is also interesting, but she is faded, in figures of people and depicted scenes, some conventional is obligatory, understandable only to the ancient Egyptians. Here you see almost modern faces, the finish is sometimes so filigree (the so-called "Millimeter Mosaic"), the color scheme is so colorfully, which involuntarily arises suspicion, and whether all this magnificence is made somewhere on the next street in the underground workshop with the help of lasers and computers. No, UN experts have repeatedly confirmed the authenticity of these findings, it means that the brilliant Carthaginian civilization is not a mirage in the desert of centuries.
And there is no Carthage itself, there are several pumped fragments of the columns of any idea of any idea, they do not carry tourists here, so it is especially inquisitive to get on their own. Tourists also demonstrate well-preserved and quite traditional baths, built by many later destruction of the Carthage; Surprisingly, the Romans were set up here hundreds of times more than destroyed – in all this they affected their hatred for the Great City, and the feeling of historical guilt for his destruction.
Reasons for hatred were. On the 22th century ago, when Rome scored power and filled with imperial ambitions, the idea of turning the Mediterranean Sea in "Italian lake" (reanimated Mussolini in 1920). This promised power and wealth. But in the Western Mediterranean, Carthaginian Maritheliers hosted, in the East – Egypt. However, the Egyptians are still very far away (their turn will come later), and from Carthage to Sicily, Roman province, closer than from Ryazan to Moscow – this is a completely specific military threat. Her and implemented Carthaginian Hannibal, who passed "Fire and sword" throughout Italy, but for some reason, sporm Rome (historians and military specialists still perplex why).
Then then the famous Delenda Est Carthago – Carthage must be destroyed. Senator, legitimate, ascetic Caton (predecessor s.Brzezinsky and K. Del Ponte in one person) convinced the Romans that it was not just to defeat the hated city, but to erase him from the face of the earth. And when the hour has come, Caton did not restrain myself: everything that could burn, burned, the stone was crushed and for the most part they were taken out, the empty was repaired and fell asleep with salt, so that the grass did not grow. The remaining Carthaginians sold out in slavery, a great country, like Atlantis, disappeared without a trace.
Something more than achieving political, economic, military purposes is seen for this zoological hatred, the romantic removal civilization of merchant merchants caused a secret envy of the logical-one-dimensional pragmatic Romans, and this item will not forgive. On a frauded place formed the Roman province and called it "Africa". Not everyone was solidar with Caton in his obvious barbarism (even on topics for superplate times), they felt someday. In five centuries, Vandals from Northern Germany were held through Eastern Europe to Spain, crossed the African continent, thirty lived on the site of the former Carthagen, driving away from the Romans and fought their slaves to their tribe, and in 455 he captured and destroyed Rome, putting the end of the Roman civilization.
Vandalism is customary to determine as meaningless destruction of cultural values. In the Bardo Museum, except for mosaic, a lot of Romans found in Tunisia and the Romans found in Tunisia – everyone has a broken nose, hands and genitals. Roman-Mr. overwhelmed pride, and he walked, literally reroken the nose, in charge of a hand gesture pointing to a slave. And the marble figure was perceived then not "Cultural value", and some idol, almost a clone of living Roman, of course, the slaves-vandals did not want those extended their own. So they beat off the sculptures all hated – it seems that often nonsense in history has its meaning, it is if not justified, then explain.
. Boyless sea and myths remained from swept over this earth. I carry a tiny black elephant with a fun trunk – a symbol of success and happiness. Elephants walked with the army of Hannibal through the Alps on Rome, and, although, according to historians, they were only a burden for the great commander and shortly died, the Mille was attributed to the weighty contribution to the victory.
