Dia de los muertos

Being in love with all things macabre, I could not ignore Mexican Day of the Dead and cult image of La Calavera de la Catrina. So this Halloween, we were inspired by the sugar skulls, ancient tombs, beautiful vintage dresses and mourning cemetery flowers.

  

- Oh, Gomez. The Bermuda Triangle. Devil's Island. The black hole of Calcutta. - Excuse us. Second honeymoon.

Not so long ago, I started to tell you about my trip to the mysterious India. The second city on our way was Calcutta. People call it "The city of joy". And they are definitely right. Calcutta looks very different than Delhi. The reason for that its colonialist past. As you know, the city was founded by the British, and this is evident throughout. Everywhere there are beautiful houses in European style, and each of them deserves to be immortalized in a photo. Wide avenues with sidewalks are laid in the center. Absolutely fabulous appear Christian churches rising above the palm trees here and there. Oh yes, madly many trees, parks and gardens. So Calcutta became a real surprise for us. And you know what is the most exciting? Victorian atmosphere of the city. At the heart of it is the Victoria Memorial - a charming building with a monument to Queen Victoria, who imperiously looks at you from the top down. At the same time, the Indian way of life contributed to the appearance of the city. Many rickshaws, some kind of cables everywhere, people, merchants, vegetable stalls, tents, English yellow cabs and old buildings - all this creates an atmosphere of post apocalyptic London. It's fantastic! 

(I called myself a little Victorian ghost, and passers-by - a doll)

(I promise I will never do so again!)

Unfortunately we didn't have so much time. What I'm really sorry, it's that we don't have time to explore the cult of the great and terrible Hindu goddess Kali, after whom the city is named. We have been in only one temple dedicated to her, and it's very extraordinary place. It's imbued with incredible energy. Kali is the only goddess who in the peaceful Hinduism receives bloody sacrifices... So this place is creepy and sacred and causes trembling. 

(Ripon street, 82 - guest house for the Europeans, where  Mircea Eliade lived)

(Boot cleaner on the opposite side of the street)

Yet another reason to visit Kolkata - my favorite writer Mircea Eliade. The fact that Romanian scholar of religion had spent a few years before the outbreak of the World War II here. I wanted to go to the same places that he did, as I imagined Calcutta from his books. Of course, Kolkata nowdays is not at all as he described it, however for me it was a kind of pilgrimage. 

To be beautiful is to be almost dead

I was lucky enough to chance upon a new masterpiece of Gothic horror  in the vastness of the internet. I'm  talking about amazing miniseries called "Penny Dreadful". Its authors are obviously inspired by tabloid horrors of the late 19th century. The film takes us back to the Victorian era, where in a dark and dirty London live side by side vampires, Frankenstein, Dorian Gray, professor Van Helsing, and other well-known characters of classic books. Frankly, I don't like mixing such subjects, but here it looks very natural. The film creates a special atmosphere, filled with spiritualism, magic, esotericism so that the presence of all these monsters around doesn't seem out of the ordinary. The cast is also marvelous. Eva Green, as always, combines fragility, elegance and gloomy beauty. Besides all this, the show perfectly captures some of the phenomena of culture and art of the time: the Grand Guignol theater, addiction to absinthe, superstitions, Tarot, elegant dresses, false morality, the study of the East, Neo-Gothic.