A little refreshing randomness from around the globe
They may be the most stylish carpenters in the world.
They are Journeymen - Gesellen. Since the 13th century, these young German tradesmen have gone ‘auf der Walz,‘ or taken to the road with little more than a walking stick and their tools. Then, as now, they always were their trademark, tailored Kluft: bellbottom pants, double-breasted […]
It’s the deepest man-made hole in the world: over seven miles.
Soviet Russia wanted to go deeper. By the time it closed up shop in 1994, the Kola Superdeep Borehole had worked its way through one-third of the continental crust. Even after pioneering new methods of drilling, that was as far as they could go: after […]
A Czech-American artist started his own reliquary.
He had plenty of raw material: he lived in New York City. Through friends and friends of friends, he began to collect bits and pieces of celebrity which - through the magic of relics - were themselves imbued with the bizarre power of fame. In this way, Barton Lidice […]
Germans will be honest even if it kills them.
The Stasi were the secret police of East Germany, and they were everywhere. They were ‘The Sword and Shield of the Party,’ the eyes and ears of totalitarianism. But they had help: hundreds of thousands of everyday East German citizens doubled as informers - ‘Inoffizielle Mitarbeiteren’ - […]
In central Scotland, boats take the elevator.
The Falkirk Boat Wheel is the world’s only rotating boat lift. Boats that travel along the Union Canal have to transfer to the Fort and Clyde Canal - an eight-story drop. Thirty-five meters wide, the Falkirk Boat Wheel scoops boats up like playthings, and deposits them below.
It uses barely […]
The northern Finnish town of Oulu has been described as ‘Just like Geelong, but colder and with more fish.’ It is home to, among other things, the World Air Guitar Championship.
It is also the birthplace of the Shouting Men’s Choir: thirty men in black suits, yelling.
Finns, by and large, are quiet people. Silence doesn’t have […]
In Zurich, they burn Old Man Winter in effigy.
His name is Böögg (from “Bogey”), and this is Sechselauten, the Six Ringing Festival, a Swiss holiday created in order to celebrate the Spring Equinox. Built on a wooden frame and stuffed with explosives, Frosty is carried into the Bellevue Platz, overlooking the lake, while getting solidly […]
A saltwater aquarium in Berlin employs two full-time divers to clean it.
You cannot buy the world’s largest aquarium at your local pet store. The outer cylinder was assembled, on site at the Radisson SAS Hotel, in four separate pieces, while the interior cylinder was delivered ready-made. The AquaDom is also the largest acrylic cylinder in […]
Yuri Gagarin left the earth in 1961, from the middle of the Kazakh desert.
The Baikonur Cosmodrome was the Russian capital of space travel: 6717 square kilometers, dozens of launch pads, and a 1500-kilometer rocket test range. Spaceship parts would arrive by train. Nowadays, although still in service, the Russian space program is surrounded by acres […]
The Eighth Wonder of the World has been built by a 57-year old former insurance broker.
This man had childhood visions of his past life in a lost civilization, and swore to rebuild what he saw. He first dug a trial tunnel under his own parents house to better understand the science of excavation, and later […]
