Physical traces of the past found in the urban landscape, architecture, and infrastructure beyond Galicia
An old iron gate in Tallinn. The inscription says “W. Paech in Reval 1868.” Reval was the old name for Tallinn, in use from the 13th century until 1917. Estonia was part of the Russian Empire in the 19th century; however, Baltic Germans made up the majority of the city’s […]
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This ghost sign I saw through the window of my hostel room. It is on an former furniture factory in a courtyard. The sign says “Mööblitööstus,” which is Estonian for “furniture manufacture.” Two restored hand-painted signs from when this building used to house a pharmacy and a gallery. Now it […]
Ģipša Fabrika (Gypsym Factory) is located on the island of Kipsala, a former fishermen’s village. This nineteenth-century brick building used to be a plaster factory. Now it is part of a luxury apartment complex. Somewhere in the Old Town These two signs are on a building on Albert Street, a street […]
Although not nearly to the same extent as in Tallinn, remnants of the merchants’ hoisting mechanisms remain on several of the medieval houses in Riga. A granary from the 18th century
Tallinn’s Old Town used to be an important trading city on the coast of the Baltic Sea. Fortunately, a majority of the medieval buildings have survived, including many of the merchants’ houses. The attic spaces—and sometimes several of the upper floors—of these houses were used to store the merchants’ goods. […]
When I was Glasgow, I noticed on several buildings in the city center the same tram rosettes that are in Lviv. Thus I immediately knew that Glasgow once had a tram system. Glasgow’s electric tram route began in 1898. In 1962 the city abandoned its tramway system — the last city in […]
St Andrews, a historic town a few hours away from Edinburgh, has its share of boot scrapers – including some rather unique ones. Finding other uses for these cavities — a sign that boot scrapers are obsolete.
Starting in 1676, water from several springs near Edinburgh was piped into a reservoir at Castle Hill, from where it was conveyed to a total of 14 cisterns on High Street and the nearby area. In about 1820 these public wells went out of use with the introduction of additional […]
British police boxes (telephone kiosks or callboxes used by the police or by the public to contact the police) first appeared in Glasgow in the 1891. Edinburgh’s rectangular boxes were designed c. 1937 by an architect inspired by the city’s neoclassical architecture. At their peak, 86 police boxes were in […]
I expected to find more ghost signs in Scotland, but nevertheless I found some interesting ones in Edinburgh. I’m not sure about the dates of these – unlike in Ukraine, the language of the signage doesn’t help to date the sign. But by what is being advertized and font it seems like […]
Edinburgh is awash with boot scrapers, especially in the New Town (built between 1765 and 1850), where just about every building’s front door or front stairway is flanked by boot scrapers. The boot scrapers come in various designs. Some are attached to the railings of the balconies, but most are […]
