Lviv has always felt like my native town; however, in recent times none of my ancestors were from here. But in the last few years I discovered that my direct ancestors on two sides of my family (Polish and Austrian) did live in Lviv – though over 200 years ago, in […]
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Mikolasch Passage was a glass-covered shopping arcade, which housed two cinemas, restaurants, cafes, and shops. The passage was built between 1898 and 1900. One entrance was from Kopernyka Street, through the entrance of Piotr Mikolasch’s famous pharmacy. (In 1853 in Piotr Mikolasch’s pharmacy, Jogann Zeh and Ignacy Lukasiewicz invented the […]
“If the real Jewish music of Transylvania is gone, this disc makes sure it will not be forgotten.” – See more here.
My paternal grandfather was born in the village of Lybokhora (Turka District), the “capital” of Boyko instrumental music. His parents, who were from the Sambir and Lviv regions, moved to this Carpathian village in the early 1900s to direct and teach at the local school. This is a picture from […]
“Z wysokiego pola” (From the High Field) is one of my favorite songs by Orkiestra św. Mikołaja. The melody of the song is Hungarian, while the text is a Polish ballad from the region near Zamość— an ancestral land. In the early nineteenth century my great 4x grandfather had an estate in Zalesie. […]
It’s farily common to find the dates of buildings carved into their facades, but occasionally the years of constructions were marked in other places, for example on the floor near the main entrance, such as can be seen in my posts about terrazzo or on tiles as seen below. This one […]
Inside of Les Kurbas Theater in Lviv is a ghost sign in French. The building was built in 1909 and originally functioned as a variety theater. The sign dates from the first era (1909-1918), or possibly from the interwar period since I see “Polonia” written there (though seems that during […]
A ghost sign on a former bookstore called Nowości, which existed in the interwar period. Today the space houses a small store selling art and office supplies, among other things. Here’s a listing of the bookstore in a directory from 1939:
I bought my tsymbaly (hammered dulcimer) from the Tafiychuks—a family of musicians and instrument makers that lives in the Carpathian Mountains. Mykhailo Tafiychuk, or “the Last Hutsul Musical Magician” as Cobblestone Freeway dubbed him in this article, makes many different ancient instruments such as the hurdy gurdy, tsymbaly, and duda (Ukrainian bagpipe). […]
Riunione Adratica was an Italian insurance company specializing in fire insurance and cargo-transport insurance. The company was founded in 1838 in Trieste, which at that time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. “Almost immediately branch agencies or representative offices were opened in Athens; Budapest; Graz, Austria; Leghorn, Lugano, and Milan, Italy; Berlin; […]
Gothenburg’s Sandwich Shop Fresh butter Fresh eggs
