After a revelation from God (who allegedly spoke with a German accent), schoolteacher Joseph T. Barta dedicated 30 years of his life to a massive woodcarving project. The end result is Wisconsin 's Museum of Woodcarving, the largest collection of its kind in the world.
The museum's most popular draw is the life-sized statuary depicting Biblical scenes, which visitors walk along in chronological order. Over 100 figures carved from pine make up the statuary. There's the usual characters at the Nativity and the Last Supper, while the Crucifixion includes a jeering midget and the Devil at Jesus' feet. Two women fight over a baby in the Judgment of Solomon. In one bleak corner, Judas hangs from a noose, casting his guilty shadow on the wall.
In a much cheerier section of the museum there are over four hundred tiny, lovingly crafted animals. Bears, skunks, alligators, porcupines, they're all there. Their fur, feathers, and scales were all carved with care from oak, poplar, walnut, and basswood.
We’ve all heard this phrase before: man cave. Whether it’s in a hardware store commercial, a chagrined sigh from mom, or as a sitcom punch line, the man cave is, without a doubt, a part of our current homeowner vernacular. But what defines this space, and how did it get here? Of course, the history of the masculine-feminine dichotomy in interiors and architecture is a well-exhausted field, but few have covered the fact that the 30+ year increase in home size has created opportunities for new gendered spaces, and that these spaces are more than mere frivolity: they are an interesting piece of a changing social landscape.
So what are man caves?
A man cave usually develops in spare rooms, such as bedrooms, offices, finished basements, or recreation rooms. The garage, another traditionally masculine space, is more often a workshop or place to make repairs. Its connotation with work (often frustrating and unsavory as any viewer of Home Improvement can attest) as well as its thermal issues (it’s rarely cooled or heated like the rest of the house) demarcate it from the man cave, an interior space.
Most man caves are devoted to a man’s hobby, such as sports, music, or video games. In fact, the “theming” of a man cave is often what sets it apart from a mere recreation room or den. Theming in man caves is often a visual demarcation—it says this is my space and this is what I do in it. While the rest of the house often follows the interior design dogma of the woman, the mancave is the domain of the man, and is his space of self-expression. And it’s a pretty new thing.
While men have always had their sacred spaces in the home such as the garage or study, the domesticity of the 19th and early 20th century overall implied that the home was, of course, the woman’s place. In the previous centuries, men sought refuge outside the home in establishments such as gentlemen's clubs (think more country club than strip club), and male-only social clubs and establishments such as the Freemasons.
While a few of these establishments remain today (mostly in cities or as historical places such as the Yale Gentlemen’s Club) they are few and far between in this egalitarian age. In the case of the Freemasons and other fraternal service groups, memberships are dwindling at an alarming rate, primarily because their core membership consists of elderly and retired persons, making these clubs stodgy or otherwise unappealing to young people.
In addition to the dwindling number of male-only public spaces, two other male-dominated spaces, the workplace and the university—have become more and more gender-balanced over the last 50 years. The participation of women in the labor force increased 53 percent in the years between 1963 and 2012, and the percentage of working mothers increased 30 percent. During the same period, the number of women to complete four or more years of college increased by almost 25 percent. The combined effects of the disappearing male-only clubs and the integration of women in academia and the workplace left men fewer and fewer places to be alone and to be, well, men.
The mancave is no doubt in part a response to these social changes, and this is reflected in the etymology of the word itself. The term “man cave” only entered the public lexicon in the last decade of the 20th century. It’s first recorded use was in the 1992 book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, by John Gray, who writes:
“[A man] becomes very quiet and goes to his private cave to think about his problem, mulling it over to find a solution. When he has found a solution, he feels much better… If he can’t find a solution then he does something to forget his problems, like reading the news or playing a game…”
The home, the former domain of the woman while the man worked, became increasingly gender-neutral. The task of parenting, once relegated to the woman and/or servants, has also seen these changes as more and more women seek long-term careers. In the last decade, the number of stay-at-home dads has doubled.
According to Paula Aymer, a professor of Sociology at Tufts University, in this new landscape where childcare becomes more equally divided between mom and dad, now “...both partners occasionally feel the need to retreat… [and] there's value for a man wanting to declare his space as private, while the woman's space is open to others in the family."
In an increasingly egalitarian world, will the man cave see a similar fate to its predecessors? While women-only spaces in the house are on the rise, with labels such as the “she shed” or “woman cave,” the concept hasn’t taken off in the same respect as the man cave, for the reason that much of the home is still demarcated as a feminine space in the popular eye. The woman’s need to escape the world of men is a relatively new phenomenon, after all. The man cave came first because men were losing their hold of the world, and sought to retreat to a place in the home where they could still possess feelings of power.
Perhaps man caves can be seen as a physical manifestation of changing social rules, with the rise (again) of feminism and gay rights. After all, the digital world is filled with man caves: think of all the sites devoted to the Men’s Rights Movement.
How long will this phenomenon last? As new generations of men become more adjusted to changing social norms, their need to assert aggressively masculine space will cede to their need to establish their own private rooms. The man caves of the future will be less assertively gendered, and their rhetoric will be less filled with terms like “asserting your dominance.” The need to escape the hassles of parenting, work, and yes, one’s spouse sometimes, will always be present. Marking one’s territory? Hopefully not.
Most of the time, wild grizzlies are independent creatures. New moms and cubs excepted, they tend to hunt alone, hibernate alone, and wander the forests solo.
But a week ago, a grizzly management specialist named Mike Madel was out bear-tracking in Montana when he found not two, not three, but thirteen grizzlies, all hanging out. "I don't know if anyone has really observed that many bears together before," Madel told the Great Falls Tribune.
The bears, mostly mothers and young cubs, seemed healthy and relaxed, bedding down in the snow in the foothills of a local ranch. Biologists across the state tried to figure out why they were so close together despite a lack of obvious draws, like a large quantity of food. One, Wayne Kasworm, speculated that it may have been a family reunion. "That's at least one of the theories out there, [that] these bears have some relationship with one another in terms of [being] mother-daughter and possibly even grandmother," he said.
But bears are mysterious creatures, and it's tough to deduce their motives. Were they celebrating a bear holiday? Attending a conference? Grouping up to early vote? "Quite frankly," Kasworm says, "we don't know for sure."
Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that's only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.
In 1960, the Cold War was going strong and the enemies of the United States were both manifold and secret. The threat of global destruction loomed large just beyond the horizon. There was a feeling that death could come in nearly any form, which was reinforced by the U.S. government in the form of films from the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization.
The government felt the need to prepare for any kind of attack. This included a theoretical bioweapon, which might take the form of an airborne pathogen that would spread quickly and cause unimaginable chaos.
The U.S. Army Chemical Corps set about making protective masks that would suit every civilian man, woman, and child. These required models and tests, and, as this 1960 video pulled from the National Archives shows, who better to test on than actual children?
Luckily, there was never any need to use these masks. But if there had been, they probably would have worked. Now, in our post-Cold War world, the images of American schoolchildren in identical gas masks make for quite the jarring visual.
Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.
A midday walk through the colorful market square of Poznań in central Poland means vibrantly painted buildings, bustling cafes, food stalls and vendors—and throngs of locals and tourists jostling for the best spot to watch a 465-year-old fight. It just happens to be between a couple of mechanical goats.
At the heart of the square is Poznań’s Town Hall, topped by three turrets with a clock tower in the middle. As the time inches towards noon the assembled crowd waits for the bell to toll, craning their necks to watch two iron billy goats glide out and face each other. As they have done since the year 1551, the goats butt heads twelve times to strike the midday hour.
It’s a lovely tradition, with an unexpected origin story.
Back in the middle of the 16th century there was a chef in town (some versions call him “Pete”) who was charged with cooking an elaborate feast for the mayor and some visiting dignitaries. Pete set about preparing some roast deer, but things didn’t go so well. Distracted by the festivities of the big event, his beautiful joint of venison ended up falling off the spit, straight into the fire, burning to a crisp.
Pete needed some new meat, but the butcher had no more venison. In a desperate move to save the meal (and his own neck) he grabbed two grazing goats from a nearby meadow, but they escaped his grasp and darted off towards Town Hall. They ran up the stairs into the tower, catching the attention of the crowd below when they emerged from the turret, locked horns and began to battle it out. The crowd included the mayor and his guests, who were more charmed than they were angry about the meal, so Pete and the goats were pardoned.
A new clock was in the works for the Town Hall, so the mayor ordered that two goats be added to the mechanism, cuckoo clock style. They’ve been taking noonday center stage ever since. Luckily for the crowds down below it’s always a draw, so they’ll be back again tomorrow to fight another day.
In December 2005, the FBI opened a file on the religious extremist group the “Church of the Hammer.”
Named after the infamous treaty on witchcraft and allegedly founded by a protégée of Westboro Baptists’ Fred Phelps, the group called for violent retribution on those in defiance of God’s will.
Particularly practitioners of the goth subculture, but they weren’t by any means picky.
The Bureau’s main source on the case was a goth who had engaged with members of the Church via their Yahoo Group “GodHatesGoths,” trying to dispel their misconceptions about the relationship between the subculture and Satanism.
The unnamed goth was apparently unsuccessful.
Eventually, the FBI deemed the Church enough of a threat to move beyond mere fact-finding into full-on investigation - agents feared that if they didn’t act soon, they might have another Waco on their hands.
However, pretty early on the Bureau ran into a snag: none of the people asked about the many incidents the Church was supposedly involved in had any clue what agents were talking about.
And then in March of 2006, the FBI did something it hadn’t done before - it actually visited GodHatesGoths.com. And what did they find?
A disclaimer - in small print, mind - that the site and and the Church were satire.
And so, in July of 2007, over two years after the FBI opened their investigation into the Church of the Hammer, the Bureau closed it, on grounds that it didn’t exist.
Once you’re in a panic, there are so many things to panic about! But it’s also possible to stay cool—to follow the immortal advice of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: DON’T PANIC.
With that in mind, below is a list of 32 real-life phenomena that could be panic-inducing, but chances are you are not panicking about them currently.
Feel free to substitute any of these concerns for a real panic-inducing anxiety. Why worry about an election you can’t control when you can freak out about the lights on the 2017 Jeep Wrangler or the giant underwater city found off the coast of Mexico? (Was it built by aliens? Could it have been built by aliens?)
Either way, just remember: deep breaths always help. Ready? Here we go. These are 32 things that we are totally not panicking about!
The independent Republic of Texas had a good 10-year run in the middle of the 19th century. From 1836 to 1846 the Lone Star State wasn’t a state at all, but its own country. It had its own flags, currency, capital, and even its own embassies.
In order to show foreigners that they were entering sovereign land, granite markers were driven into the ground along the Republic’s borders. Today there is only one of these boundary markers still on the job.
Dating back to 1840, this last of the known markers is 10 miles southeast of Deadwood, Texas (yes, it really is called Deadwood) on Farm-to-Market Road 31. Its role is unofficial now, except to let you know when you’ve left Louisiana, and give you a little history of the old Republic and the disputed border along the Sabine River. There were many of these stone markers at the time, but this one, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is the only one that hasn’t either disappeared or sunk into the river.
The granite pillar is nine inches square, and sticks up about four feet from the ground. An accompanying plaque notes that it’s actually ten feet long, which means it’s buried several more feet—a feature that has kept it from being stolen, at least on one reported occasion. Three sides are engraved, providing all the necessary details: Merid. Boundary, Established A.D., 1840* on one side, and sides two and three simply say U.S. and R.T., just to make sure you knew which side you were on.
At the very end of the Malay peninsula sits the city state of Singapore, which was once plagued with retracting penises. In 1967, in one of the best-documented epidemics of koro, (or genital retraction syndrome) ever, hundreds of people rushed to hospitals, deathly afraid that if they loosened their grip they would die.
Today Singapore is one of the wealthiest and most successful countries on earth, and much of its old character seems to have been washed away by a tide of modernization. An international crossroads for hundreds of years, the city is now clean and safe and has everything most countries aspire to. You can walk along the street and be sure none of your body parts will disappear. But this wasn’t always the case.
The mass genital shrinking epidemic began in October of 1967. In one case, a 16-year-old male rushed into the General Hospital’s outdoor clinic with his parents close behind. “The boy looked frightened and pale,” as one report described it, “and he was pulling hard on his penis to prevent the organ from disappearing into his abdomen.”
The boy’s parents shouted for the doctors to help because the boy had suo yang (the Chinese word for koro, which we consider a culturally-related "genital retraction syndrome") and if the retraction didn't stop, he would die. The doctors reassured the family and gave the boy ten milligrams of chlordiazepoxide, after which he improved.
The boy’s problem had started at school, where he’d heard rumors that tainted pork—inoculated against swine fever—could cause koro. Earlier that morning, he’d eaten a steamed bun with pork in it. When he went to urinate, he looked down and felt his penis start to shrink. “Frightened, he quickly grasped the organ and rushed to his parents shouting for help.”
More people followed. Before long the hospitals were flooded with patients. Pork sales plummeted. The Ministry of Primary Production announced that both swine fever and the vaccine were harmless to humans, but the epidemic seemed to accelerate. For seven days it continued, until finally the Singapore Medical Association and the Ministry of Health started appearing on television and radio to announce that suo yang was a purely psychological condition, and that no one had died from it. There was an immediate drop in the number of cases. By November, there were no reports at all.
In the end, a total of 469 cases were recorded, though the real number was certainly higher, since the survey only included Western hospitals and did not account for traditional Chinese doctors. All patients who were interviewed by doctors had heard stories about koro before they experienced it. After the epidemic, the Chinese Physician Association concluded that “the epidemic of Shook Yang was due to fear, rumor mongering, climatic conditions, and imbalance between heart and kidneys….” Meanwhile, a Western-oriented “Koro Study Team,” concluded that koro was “a panic syndrome linked with cultural indoctrination.”
How much had changed since 1967? Had the remains of the city’s old culture been washed away in the tide of modernization? Were the old ways of thinking—of believing—gone? Or was it more complicated?
Singapore’s Chinatown is peppered with stores that sell traditional Chinese medicine. Not long after I arrived in the city, I went there to ask around about suo yang and strolled among the open bins of flattened squid, dried sea cucumbers, mushrooms, oysters, and tree bark. People streamed in constantly, bringing their health complaints, for which the shopkeepers could prescribe a mix of herbs and other ingredients—either fresh or prepackaged. The stores did a brisk business.
In one shop in a dingy open-air mall packed with travel agencies, photocopy shops, noodle stands, and tea stores, I approached the counter. A portly man behind it ambled over. For some reason, I had my hand on stomach. He pointed to it.
“You have problem with bathroom?”
His English was choppy, but he made a downward sweep with his hand that indicated the flushing of the bowels.
“Yes,” I said. This was sort of true.
“You go every day?”
“Yes.”
“Too many per day?”
I just kept saying yes. It seemed easier than launching into my genital inquiry. He brought over a small box.
“You take this every day.”
“Is this for yin or yang?”
“Oh you know yin and yang!”
“A little.”
“This for too much yin.”
“Do you have anyone with suo yang?”
He stared blankly.
“Suo yang?” I said again. “When the man’s penis is being sucked into his body?”
“No, never.”
“Were you here in 1967?”
“In 1967, I study.”
I bought the stomach medicine, then walked around till I came to another shop. I asked the man working if he knew suo yang. “You know, when your penis is disappearing into your body.” I tried to make the motions, but it was a strange public game of charades. He pointed to his crotch. “You mean for this problem?”
“Yes.”
“For men?”
“Yes.”
He handed me a box of small pills. “This very good,” he said. He turned away from the female clerks, lowered his elbow to his crotch and raised his forearm like a giant erection. “Makes you very strong.”
“Thank you,” I said, and I took the box from him an examined the label. This was not working. Language was a problem.
I put the medicine back, then went and called a friend who lived in the city, and who spoke and wrote Mandarin. He e-mailed me the Chinese characters for suo yang along with an explanation. I printed these out, then went back to Chinatown and stopped into the first shop I came to. I showed the woman at the country the paper.
“Do you know this?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “One of the ingredients is suo yang. It’s especially for men.
“No,” I said, “it’s not an ingredient. It’s a condition. There was an epidemic and people thought they were going to die.”
She looked at the paper. “To die? For this problem, maybe you should see the doctor.”
“The traditional doctor?”
“Yes, he will be back in half an hour.”
“But I don’t need the medicine for myself.”
“Here’s some medicine. This will help you.” She handed me a small box.
“How much is this?”
“Twenty dollars.”
Back on the streets, I walked past the Chinatown museum, past the crowd of tourists looking at drink menus. Despite appearances, and despite my communication troubles, it was clear that people had not stopped believing in the world as it was stitched together in old Chinese medical texts. Perhaps the difference was simply that now there was another world, the Western one, layered on top in a kind of palimpsest. How did they fit together? Was the older one weaker than before?
Before I left, I stopped in one last shop. The man working there wasn’t particularly old but he spoke good English, so I asked him directly: “Do you ever have people ask about suo yang? When the penis is disappearing into the body?”
He knew exactly what I meant.
“For that,” he said, “you need tiger penis. But it’s very hard to get in Singapore. Maybe you go to Thailand.”
“But do you get many people asking about it?”
“Not now. In the olden days, yes. But now, no.”
“What would you do for them?”
“For that,” he said, “you need to see your physician."
After a long day at work, there’s nothing better than sitting down at a bar and enjoying a nice, foamy bottle of yellow liquid previously stored in a human body.
Did the thought make you panic? If so, you might understand how lovers of Corona beer felt in 1987.
Though the brand had only arrived to the United States in 1979, its rise to the top was almost immediate. Its allure as the “California surfer/life by the beach” beer of choice, made it a national favorite. Less than ten years after its arrival, it was second only to Heineken for imported beer popularity.
It seemed like nothing could stop Corona Extra, a product of the Mexican beer company, Grupo Modelo. But then, unexpectedly, stores begun to refuse to sell it, sales plummeted, and the entire country turned against it. The reason? A rumor that urine was one of its components.
Beer distributors whispered that Mexican workers used beer containers destined to be exported to the U.S. as urinals. Supposedly, this was the way the irate workers took vengeance on their northern neighbors and fiercest rivals. Or something to that effect.
Sadly, this obvious lie was believed by many beer drinkers. In some towns, sales went down by almost 80 percent, and stores all over the country returned shipments. Though not everyone believed the ridiculous rumor, enough people panicked and spoke out against the company for there to be irreversible consequences on sales and brand name.
Panicking, Michael J. Mazzoni of Barton Beers, the company that distributed Corona, decided to investigate into the matter to see in what way the company’s reputation could be salvaged. He somehow managed to trace the rumor back to one of Heineken’s retailers, Luce and Son, Inc., who were eager to chip away at Corona's growing market share.
Corona's parent company sued for $3 million in damages. A settlement was reached, and, Luce and Son, along with representatives of other beer companies who had been happy to repeat the rumor, agreed to issue public statements denying the veracity of the allegations.
The damage to Corona's reputation had been sustained, though and not just to the beer: the rumor fed upon and amplified racist stereotypes against Hispanic culture. It took the company years to recover, and it has taken them even longer to dispel the falsehood that, perhaps, prevented their becoming the most popular imported beer in the U.S.. Articles dedicated to dispelling myths about beer continue to struggle to debunk the rumor.
And even people who are sound enough to realize the rumor is a blatant lie, often have a hard time dispelling the unpalatable image of urine as they see the yellow, foamy beer. So much so, that Urban Dictionary lists “Mexican piss water” as a derogatory name for Corona. Old rumors die hard.
There’s an area in the Chihuahuan desert in northern Mexico where radio signals don’t work, and compasses spin out of control when placed near stones on the ground. It’s called the Zone of Silence. It measures only 50 kilometers across, and it is located in the Mapimí Biosphere Reserve, a huge, mostly uninhabited expanse of almost 400,000 hectares, where the flat and desolate terrain is interspersed with lonely mountain outcrops.
“The Zone is my passion,” Benjamin Palacios says as we bounce through the area in his 4-wheel drive Suburban, surrounded by mesquite, cactus, and guamis—brilliant yellow flowers resembling buttercups. Palacios, 61, grew up in the village of Escalón, Chihuahua, on the edge of the Zone, and now has his own UFO-themed ranch on the area’s periphery.
As we head into the heart of the Zone, Palacios, a charismatic man with a deep tan and a full beard, veers his truck onto a desert track. Back on the main road, only a few miles away, the radio came in loud and clear. Now, he hits ‘search’ and it endlessly scans. No signal.
The disruption is believed to be caused by subterranean deposits of magnetite, as well as debris from meteorites. The Zone’s overall effects (and even its location) are disputed, but there’s no doubt that the area, which sits on the borders of the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Durango, and Coahuila, has an abundance of celestial activity—including, some say, visits from UFOs and extraterrestrials.
Throughout the 20th century large meteorites landed in southern Chihuahua near the Zone, with two even falling on the same ranch—one in 1938, and another in 1954. A third fell in 1969 in the Allende Valley, just to the west. “It woke me, and I saw the firmament alight,” Palacios says of that meteorite. “People for miles saw the light and heard the tremendous noise, which broke windows. It attracted the attention of scientists from around the world.”
The name Zone of Silence was not given until 1966 when Pemex, the national oil company, sent an expedition to explore the area. The leader, Augusto Harry de la Peña, was frustrated by the problems he was having with his radio. He christened it the Zone of Silence.
This turned the area into something of a curiosity. However, on July, 11, 1970, the Zone made headlines. That was when an Athena rocket was launched from a U.S. air force base in Green River, Utah, as part of a scientific mission to study the upper atmosphere. The rocket was supposed to come down near White Sands, New Mexico. Instead, it went wildly astray and, at two in the morning, crashed in the heart of the Zone of Silence.
The Zone was now—if only briefly—in the international spotlight, and some locals saw a tourism opportunity. Wernher Von Braun, the famous Nazi rocket scientist who helped the Americans build their space program, came to investigate on behalf of the U.S. He was greeted at the train station by Palacios’ father, who was then the mayor of Escalón. Von Braun took reconnaissance flights in a Cessna to confirm the crash site. With the aid of 300 Mexican workers, a 16 kilometer rail spur was built across the desert to the impact crater. A team of Americans then came and excavated.
“Von Braun was here for 28 days after the crash,” says Palacios during our extended tour of the area. “The Americans brought temporary dormitories, labs, kitchens, medical facilities, and set them up right here in the desert. They even built a runway to transport cargo directly to Houston. By rail, they hauled away tons of debris.”
It’s all gone now. There is no evidence of the five-story, seven-ton rocket, of the impact crater, of the rail spur, or of any of the structures. However, the rocket crash sparked interest in the area, and a few years later the Mexican government created the Mapimí Biosphere Reserve. The reserve has a research station, and hosts scientists from around the world, many of whom are biologists attracted to the unusual flora and fauna–including North America’s largest land reptile, the threatened Gopherus tortoise.
A larger area extending to the northeast is part of a bolsón, a depression in the desert which, due to the thickness of the soil, retains moisture. At one time, millions of years ago, the Zone was under the Sea of Thetys, the remnants of which can be seen in fossilized sea shells and vast salt deposits. Today, the salt is mined by laborers with shovels and wheelbarrows. It is difficult terrain, and not an area where outsiders should venture alone.
“We can’t go in that direction,” says Palacios, pointing to Tetas de Juana, twin peaks that shoot directly from the desert floor—and behind which the two large Chupadero meteorites fell. “It is riddled with old mine shafts, and there has been some moisture, which can make for hard driving.”
For generations, stories have abounded from in and around the Zone of encounters with strange beings, unusual lights in the sky, and an over-abundance of meteor showers. These usually come from people living on remote ranches, or outsiders who have gotten lost in the desert. People have seen fireballs in the sky and, at times, flames rolling down the sides of mountains like massive, ignited tumbleweeds.
“There are lots of stories of aliens and unidentified flying objects in the Zone,” says Geraldo Rivera, a bespectacled state bureaucrat who is also Chihuahua’s most devoted UFO investigator. “People often get lost in the Zone. When this happens, sometimes tall blond beings appear out of nowhere.”
Those who claim to have encountered the tall, fair haired aliens, say that the individuals speak perfect Spanish, ask only for water, and disappear without so much as a footprint. When asked where they come from, the beings—known as Nordics—say only, “Above”.
Even Benjamin Palacios has a story. “I was 12 years old when a light appeared from above, and completely encircled us,” he says. “I was traveling with my brother in the Zone. We didn’t know what was happening. When we got to back to the ranch, we realized we had lost two hours.”
Palacios’ dream is to capitalize on the supernatural intrigues and turn the Zone of Silence into a “tourist Mecca, with people staying at my ranch, and taking guided tours.” At one time, the area attracted hordes of curious “zoneros” seeking aliens and paranormal experiences, but few tourists come to this part of Mexico now, largely due to the deteriorating security situation. If they ever come back, “I want to build eight small cabanas, each named after a planet in the solar system,” he says.
It might happen. The area has under-explored delights, such as a hacienda abandoned over a century ago, during the tumult of the Mexican revolution, and thermal springs tucked into a cave. This is a starkly beautiful and compelling part of the world, but it is remote: Escalón has under 1,000 inhabitants, and Ceballos has just over 3,000. Their populations diminished as passenger rail service was abandoned and young people moved to the city or the U.S. Other than a few ranches, the desert itself is essentially empty.
Nonetheless, boosters like Palacios carry on, eager to recount stories of the Zone’s unusual properties. These include abnormally large flora and fauna and, according to Palacios, salutary properties—he tells me that he has never been sick, and this, he believes, is because of the Zone.
“The Zone has been good to our family,” says his wife, Cha Cha Palacios, as we move through the waning light. “Our daughter Alejandra and her husband could not have children. They tried everything, went to all the doctors. Then they came to the Zone, and conceived. Two years later, they returned, and conceived again.”
Is it true? It hardly seems to matter as we trundle across the flat terrain, the sun setting to the west and the moon, directly opposite, rising over a distant mountain range. Out here in the desert the world feels different. It is as if we are on a fulcrum, the earth tilting, with an orange fireball raising a metallic saucer in a quiet, celestial see-saw.
The nature of dreams is that their origins are, mostly, mysterious. Where do they come from? They start from reality, of course, but the true beginnings are rarely clear.
This year it's a little bit different, though, mostly thanks to Donald J. Trump, who has a not-implausible shot at being the next leader of the free world. This idea has caused some alarm and panic, specifically, sometimes, in dreams.
So yesterday, we asked you for true tales of your panic dreams. Dozens of you came through, with everything from the disturbing to the downright absurd. One person said they “woke up screaming,” while another refused to describe the dream, only saying they saw both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Some of the dreams were centered around the color orange. “Donald Trump walked down a short staircase and into my room," one respondent said. "He was so evil inside that he turned the air and light orange."
Another said, "Men on motorcycles were dragging people behind them if they posted negative things about Donald Trump. They were called 'The Oranges.'"
Others were weirdly optimistic:
I dreamt that I was trying to go vote on election day but I couldn't get out of work. Panicking about not getting to vote in time. Woke up feeling relief that even if I wasn't able to vote, the election was over. I considered turning on the TV to see if they had called our state or the electoral college. As logic returned to me, I realized that we still had more than a week to go. Sinking feeling returned to my stomach. Though, lesson learned, you can be sure I'll be out the for bright and early to my polling place before work! Dems and diehards vote early in the day, and I happen to be both.
Others had panic dreams that got pretty dark, especially about sexual assault.
“I dreamed that Donald Trump was pinning me down on my bed, sneering at me and not letting me up no matter how much I struggled," one person wrote.
Another said: “Being chased by a mob of people trying to take my uterus out. Politicians and scary white men trying to run [sic] my body.”
A third:
Yes, I was riding on a train when Trump sat down next to me and proceeded to chat me up. Gen wouldn't shut up or leave me alone, he just kept shoving identical business card after identical business card into my uninterested hands. I probably had it because of all the women that are opening up about assault by him.
And a fourth:
I was having Donald Trump over to my apartment for dinner. At first, I was taken aback that he seemed nicer and distinctly more down to earth than he appears in the news. However, he kept getting progressively more annoying as the night went on. He followed me into the bathroom, kept blaring one of those cheesy New Years Eve blow-out noisemakers directly in my ear, and then, finally, right before I woke up, he stuck both of his hands into my pockets.
And a fifth:
I woke up shouting: "I WILL REPORT YOU." Scared my husband half to death. I was mad as hell and ready to get some justice … The next morning I was still angry as hell, full of righteous rage. Remembered and cursed the men who've harassed me in real life. To hell with them! Makes me mad again to think of it.
Not all of the dreams were so dark, though. Some were about animals.
When I get stressed, I have a reoccurring dream that I was supposed to feed a friend's pet while they are gone and I have forgotten for days. The last one, I sat bolt upright in bed and thought "I forgot to feed the cat!" Got out of bed and stumbled toward the door "And the goats!" in the doorway "And the flamingos! Waaaaaait...who do I know who has flamingos?!". And then I went back to bed.
And the stress of animal rescue:
I kept finding hurt animals I had to take care of, but my house wasn't big enough and I didn't have enough time and they also started eating each other. I tried to keep them all in my basement because I didn't want them to hurt my cat and 2 dogs, and I kept forgetting to feed them, and it was pretty stressful. Guessing it relates to my generalized anxiety and trying to juggle obligations.
And then there were those that were downright dystopian or disturbing. Here's a selection:
I dreamed that I was working for a large...corporation? government agency? Not sure. One day they offered me an opportunity: I could press a button, and it would launch a missile from a drone being flown by somebody else. The missile would take out their target, a single person. This was a person they assured me was deserving. I would be paid $500,000 to push this button, and there would be no record of my involvement.
I was actually trying to go to bed early and I was really relaxed but then my mind just started whirring and pretty soon I was falling into sleep but all of the things that I hadn't written down or hadn't accomplished during the day just surged into chaos! Then Donald Trump was there just yelling and looking disgusting. He was in my face and sweating all over and stomping and I just woke up with the sensation that I was falling. I just snapped awake with force. I had the full on heavy chest, hard breathing, and like a headache coming on.
My wife passed out at the wheel of the car, I was in the passenger's seat trying to figure out how to simultaneously steer and get her foot off the gas pedal, but her leg was rigid and the pedal was on the floorboard. We were approaching 120 mph.
Others, like most dreams, were in the realm of the nonsensical.
I was sick about 3 weeks ago, and my fever dreams were completely inundated with Donald Trump and Mike Pence. They weren't doing anything in particular; they were just always there. It was agonizing, because I knew every time I managed to get back to sleep they'd be there waiting. … They stopped when I started to recover from my illness. I probably dreamt exclusively about Trump and Pence for three days straight.
Dreamt I was sent to apocalyptic magdalene laundry.
I was hiking the Appalachian Trail when a large tree with the face of Donald Trump chased me off a cliff.
There were zombies.
It was like Jurassic Park, dinosaurs were trying to find my friends and I in a theater to kill us.
Maybe, in another week, we'll forget all this ever happened.
There's still time if you want to add your panic dream to the list:
If you’re at all interested in the history of cinema, you’ve probably heard some version of the story about the train film that sent an audience running. According to the tale, as the silent black-and-white image of a moving locomotive filled a movie screen in Paris, the people in the cinema thought it was going to drive right into them. They panicked, and bolted for the back of the theater.
While this story is often taken as fact, it turns out that this theatrical panic is likely no more than a sturdy urban legend—and probably already was even when the film was still in the theater.
The myth of the runaway movie train surrounds a short 1896 film called L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat, or Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat. The 50-second-long silent film was created by Auguste and Louis Lumière, a pioneering set of brothers who were among the very first people to create moving pictures.
Many of the brothers' early works were barely classifiable as movies even at the time, mostly being short snippets of a scene. “This film is memorable among all the other 1,400 one-minute films (they were called ‘views’ at that time, like ‘living’ picture post cards—single-shot films without any editing), which are listed in the Lumière film catalogue,” says Martin Loiperdinger, a film scholar at the University of Trier, Germany. Loiperdinger is the author of maybe the preeminent piece of writing regarding the myth of La Ciotat, calling the film and its attendant popularity, “Cinema’s Founding Myth.” In the piece he points out that there is no hard evidence that the famed audience stampede ever occurred.
The film itself is a scene on a train platform. Riders mill about the station, while a black steam train pulls in toward the camera, which has been set up close to the edge of the tracks. But even as it was presented as just snapshot of natural action at a train station, the scene was staged by the Lumière Brothers, with the extras being told not to look at the camera.
The movie is often credited as the first documentary film, but this is also untrue. “This film clearly shows a perfect mies-en-scène of a train entering the station, from the perspective of somebody waiting on the platform, standing close to the tracks—thus the locomotive enters the frame from right rear and runs to the left bottom corner of the frame and leaves the frame while the trains stops: a perfect diagonal composition,” says Loiperdinger. The film was beautiful in its simplicity and ability to bring viewers right up and into the action on-screen, even if the scene was a portrait of daily tedium.
It’s almost hard to imagine a black-and-white short creating much of a splash, but it seems like it was a hit. According to Loiperdinger there are no accounts of how the audience reacted at the time, but journalists who wrote about their experiences at the showings of the Cinématographe Lumière, the program of short films in which La Ciotat first began appearing in 1896, seemed reasonably amazed. Even without color or sound, the film’s clear portrayal of three-dimensional movement was a sensation.
Since there are no surviving contemporary accounts of the audience reaction to those 1896 showings, there is no concrete proof that audiences ever went scurrying for the back of theater as the train pulled in on screen, and Loiperdinger thinks that such a reaction is unlikely.
“There is no evidence at all about any crowd panic in Paris or elsewhere during screenings of L’Arrivée d’un train à La Ciotat– neither police reports nor newspaper reporting,” he says. The screen the film was shown on was small (around seven feet wide), and the picture quality was not only lacking color, but it was full of grain. The image flickered noticeably, and of course, there was no sound. In other words, there was no way anyone was confusing the film for reality.
So if it never happened, where did the story of the panicked audience come from?
“The anecdote of train films and panicking audiences was already in the air before 1900,” says Loiperdinger. According to Loiperdinger, tales of panicked audiences began to surface mainly as a way for people to try to describe the emotional power inherent in the then-new medium of film. Writers reporting on Cinématographe Lumière would talk about the train nearly crashing into the audience, but just as a rhetorical method of invoking the convincing 3D effect of the moving picture.
There was also a component of class commentary in the story that spoke to film’s power and effect on the unwashed masses. The erudite, newspaper-reading, educated elites of the day took solace in the idea of rubes getting spooked by a moving image that they would never let affect them in such a way. This can be seen clearly in the 1901 silent film, The Countryman and the Cinematograph, which shows a bumpkin reacting outrageously to a series of short films. There is even a bit where he runs from the image of an oncoming train.
For the same reasons the urban legend of the train and the audience panic first arose around the release of L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat, it continues to survive today. The story still makes for a great shorthand for the power of film, and the elitists still like to giggle at the effect popcorn movies have on the masses. “The anecdote about naïve early film audiences who confuse moving pictures with reality means balm for the souls of self-conscious media consumers in later decades up to today,” says Loiperdinger.
The story of the audience panic and the train film might be bogus, but with advances in 3D making movies come alive like never before, maybe it won’t be long before people finally bring this myth to life.
The specimen above is a voting machine—but not just any voting machine. This voting machine was used in Florida, in the 2000 election. More specifically, it comes from Palm Beach County, where Democrats tried to challenge votes cast for Pat Buchanan by arguing that the design of the infamous butterfly ballot confused voters who intended to vote for Al Gore.
This, in other words, is a piece of history. And if you’re willing to spend $2,400 on eBay in the next two days, it could be yours.
It only took a few years for pieces of the 2000 election to go to market. In 2005, as the Associated Press reported years back, Jim Dobyns, a political consultant, bought 1,200 Palm Beach County voting machines and, after renting a few to HBO for Recount, started selling them off. The price for a punch card machine back then was $75, although it later went up to $99, then $250 as the supply ran out, Dobyns told NPR in 2011.
Now, they’re rare enough that this eBay seller thinks this one might be worth much more. The package also includes a signed photograph of the canvassing board who counted the chads, a photo of George W. Bush, a bumper sticker signed by Jeb Bush, and Palm Beach Post papers from the time.
If that’s not convincing but the idea of owning a piece of the 2000 election is enticing, there are cheaper options. One eBay seller was offering a Votomatic used in Marion County, Fla., during the election for $1,400; the seller bought it at auction three years ago and was told this was one of two considered for permanent preservation in the George W. Bush Library. There's another Palm Beach County machine available for $400. For budget election ephemera, there’s also Votomatic used in Florida’s 2000 election (county not specified) on sale for just $79.99.
In the decentralized and iterative transformation of the playground game of rounders into the modern game of baseball, it's difficult, if not impossible, to point to one place and say "This is where it all began." Given the thorough debunking of the myth of Cooperstown, however, Hoboken now has a stronger claim than most.
This is thanks to Alexander Cartwright, who, in 1845, formed the Knickerbocker Baseball Club of New York. The Knickerbockers were to play baseball according to a set of rules determined by Cartwright. Though celebrated at the Baseball Hall of Fame as the "Father of Modern Base Ball," it seems that Cartwright may have simply codified a number of innovative rules floating around New York ball clubs at the time, rather creating them himself (with the possible exception of the three-out inning). What does seem clear, however, is that the game the Knickerbockers played was, in every significant aspect, what we would recognize as baseball. Perhaps most importantly, their games were recorded.
They chose Elysian Fields in Hoboken as their practice site, and began intrasquad play October 6 1845, playing 15 such practice matches before the end of the year. On June 19, 1846, the Knickerbockers played their first game against another club, hosting the New York Baseball Club. The so-called "New York Nine" trounced the home team 23-1. This was the first clearly documented match between two different clubs under the new rules—or, as the plaque in Hoboken calls it, "the first match game of baseball."
Elysian Fields remained an important baseball site for the following formative decades of baseball. The "New York Rules" played at Elysian Fields were spread nationwide in army camps during the Civil War, setting far and wide the rules of what was quickly becoming the national pastime. A championship match between two New York clubs was played at Elysian Fields in 1865 in front of a crowd of 20,000; the scene was the subject of a famous Currier & Ives print.
However, in a development as familiar as it is inevitable, people eventually got tired of going all the way to Hoboken. With the construction of major baseball parks in Brooklyn in the late 1860s, the popularity of Elysian Fields began to wane. The last professional game played there took place in 1873.
The Birthplace of Baseball Monument marks the place where the original diamond is believed to have been located. The four corners of the intersection are each marked with a bronze base markers to further memorialize the significance of the site. The last extant piece of Elysian Fields is one block east of the monument, in modern-day Elysian Park.
A bench of pink granite honors Jean Jules Jusserand, the French Ambassador to the United States during World War I, and a close friend of President Theodore Roosevelt. One of the most obscure monuments in Washington, D.C., the semicircular bench was erected by the Jusserand Memorial Committee and dedicated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936. It holds the distinction of being the first memorial erected on federal property to a foreign diplomat.
Jean Jules Jusserand served as French Ambassador to the United States from 1902-1925. Soon after his arrival in Washington, Jusserand earned the confidence of President Theodore Roosevelt and became a member of his unofficial "tennis cabinet." Roosevelt and Jusserand shared a love for the outdoors and spent many long hours hiking in Rock Creek Park. In his memoir, "What Me Befell," Jusserand described their outings:
"President Roosevelt gave me that unique proof of trust and friendship when he asked me to walk. What the President called a walk was a run: no stops, no breathing time, no slacking of speed, but a continuous race, careless of mud, thorns, and the rest."
Besides his significant contributions to diplomacy between France and the United States (serving under five presidential administrations and throughout the first World War), Jusserand's writings earned him recognition at home and abroad. He won the first Pulitzer Prize in History for With Americans of Past and Present Days, a book recounting the key contributions of many Frenchmen to the history of the United States. For his efforts in Franco-American relations, Jusserand also received the "Grand Croix" of the French Legion of Honor, the highest French distinction. His efforts to promote friendship between the two countries led him to create the American Society of the Legion of Honor, which recognizes Americans who make significant contributions to France.
After returning home, Jules Jusserand eventually died in 1932. To commemorate his achievements, the Jusserand Memorial Committee erected a bench of pink granite as a memorial. The location was chosen to honor Jusserand's love for Rock Creek Park, where he frequently walked with family and friends. The bench was approved by an Act of Congress in 1935, without expense to the United States. At the commemoration on November 7, 1936, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt reflected:
"Almost we can say - that he was a great American as well as a great Frenchman. We shall link Mr. Jusserand's name forever with the names of Lafayette and Rochambeau and De Grasse and the other valiant Frenchmen whose services in this country entitle them for all time to the grateful remembrance of all Americans."
To dance with Eleanor Powell—the Golden Era of Hollywood star considered to be among the best tap dancers in the world—was a privilege afforded to few. None of her partners, however, were as decidedly talented and swoon-worthy as Buttons, the pup.
This charming dog had the honor of participating in one of the most original tap routines of all time, in this scene from the 1941 movie Lady Be Good. Described by the Pittsburgh Press as “better than Fred Astaire, nimbler than George Murphy, and can look more woebegone than Buddy Ebsen,” he clearly won over the hearts of the viewers.
Once the runt of the mill, the star was discovered by a prop boy named Jackie Ackerman, who trained him. The routine, full of jumps, flips, and taps, was learned over the course of six weeks, and gave the dog a chance to show his incredible potential and ability to pick things up quickly.
It is said that Ackerman, Powell, and Button's 14-year-old owner constantly competed for his love and attention. After watching the last part of the scene, where Buttons jumps from a sofa to a table and straight into Powell’s arms and they both tumble down in perfect harmony, one is inclined to think his preference was given to his dancing partner.
Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.
During the Second World War the only way civilians could stay safe from bombs dropped during air raids was by going underground. When bomb technology ramped up with the introduction of nuclear weaponry, bunkers and shelters responded in kind. The thought was that in the event of nuclear detonation, people could retreat underground to wait out the danger indefinitely. The American government urged its citizens to build their own bomb shelters, and many of them did.
For the most part, the bunkers and fallout shelters were never used. They were made to withstand the most violently destructive climates imaginable though, so of course they're still around. Many have been preserved and transformed into museums where visitors can see what it was like to be underground in Churchill's War Rooms or Stalin's personal bunker. Others have been left abandoned, like the ruins at Duncan's Cove or those in Vieques.
However, some 20th century bunkers have found a second life as art spaces, homes, and commercial spaces, all within the bomb-resistant concrete walls of a subterranean cavern. These used to be places to hide. Now, they've been transformed into expressions of creativity, the antithesis of Cold War ideology.
When Nazi forces took control of the historic French Fort des Dunes they installed a series of imposing seaside bunkers as part of their larger "Atlantic Wall," but today their concrete fortifications have fallen into ruin and are being used as the canvas for ambitious street art. These include graffiti projects as well as installations, like this disco-ball inspired bunker.
Built at the behest of Yugoslav revolutionary and "benevolent dictator," Josip Tito, the nuclear bunker officially known as ARK (Atomska Ratna Komanda, or "Atomic War Command") D-0 was a well kept secret for decades. The construction started in March of 1953, all hidden behind what seems to be an ordinary house, and stretching 663 feet into the mountain with over 919 feet of rock on top of it, at the thickest point. The whole complex is built in a horseshoe shape, resembling a maze with offices, conference rooms, dorms and of course, Tito's private rooms. It was all supported by two kitchens and a supply of oil, food. and water that could sustain the bunker for up to six months. In the event of a nuclear strike, the bunker could accommodate Tito and 350 of the most important political and military persons in the country.
ARK D-0 exists today only because of one Bosnian military guard, who refused to carry out an order from Serbian high command to blow up the bunker up in 1992. It now exists as a time capsule, much the same condition as it was during the Yugoslav era with all of its furniture and equipment intact. The bunker is also home of a contemporary art biennial called D-0 ARK Underground, where artists from across the Balkans contribute their work. Some works have been left behind at the bunker, making it a work of art in itself.
Between 1969 and 1988, the United States Federal Reserve stored billions of shrink-wrapped dollars in an underground facility lined with 12-inch thick concrete walls reinforced by steel. The stash was preserved as a precautionary measure, to rehabilitate the dollar supply east of the Mississippi River in the event that the East Coast was demolished by a nuclear bomb. Later, it was used as a "continuity of government" shelter, designed to house and feed 540 people for 30 days in case of a catastrophe. As it turned out, an industrial-grade bunker was also the perfect place to keep rare and valuable audiovisual recordings, which necessitate climate-controlled temperature storage, so the National Audio and Visual Conservation Center moved into this former disaster relief bunker.
This Berlin military bunker built in 1943 never saw much action as World War II ended shortly after, but the building remained standing. Today, it is one-third history museum and two-thirds haunted house. The first floor of the complex houses the bunker museum. This display features clippings, photos, and other ephemera from World War II era, and the many of the spare furnishings also remain giving visitors a sense of what bunker life would have been like. The second floor begins to get more gruesome with a multi-room exhibition on medicine and torture throughout the ages including displays regarding amputation, cannibalism, and animal-to-human blood transfusions. The third floor gives up any educational pretense and simply contains a year-round haunted house with black light rooms and jump scares.
Though technically not a bunker, this fortress in the middle of the Bay of Biscay is certainly impenetrable. Napoleon had it built in 1801, though by the time it was finished weapon technology had improved to the point that an ocean fort no longer made sense. Without any purpose for the massive fort, it quickly fell into disrepair, only being used infrequently over the next 130 years.
In 1988 though, Fort Boyard was restored to be the set for an adventurous, physical challenge game show of the same name. The show is still running today, and is the only way to get a look at Fort Boyard. You must be a contestant on the show to visit the island fortress, as it is not legally open to the public.
Built in the late 1950s this city in the limestone caves under Corsham was designed to house up to 4,000 Central Government personnel in the event of a nuclear strike. It features six miles of roads and could sustain its occupants for at least three months in complete isolation from the outside world. The Burlington nuclear bunker contained among other facilities: offices, laundries, storerooms of supplies, a hospital, cafeterias, kitchens, a television studio where the remaining government could make public addresses, and its own pneumatic tube system for speedily relaying messages throughout the complex. It even includes a pub called the Rose and Crown.
Kept absolutely top secret until it was decommissioned in 2004, the facility was never used, and boxes of government-issue glass ashtrays, lavatory brushes and civil service tea sets remain unopened and unused. When the underground city was put up for sale a number of unusual possible buyers came in including a massive data storage site, the biggest wine cellar in Europe, a nightclub for rave parties, and appropriately, a 1950s theme park. What it will be repurposed for remains to be seen.
The bunkers atop the hill of Turó de la Rovira were situated so that they could survey the entirety of the city. As such, although they're crumbling, the bunkers are now one of the most popular places to photograph Barcelona.
In the 2000s, as the popularity of the site grew, the bunkers received a renovation as officials wanted to make it more appealing to tourists as well as celebrate the ancient Iberian settlement that is also nearby. The bunkers themselves haven't been repurposed, but their builders can't have imagined the number of Instagrams that would take place there, let alone what Instagram is.
The monument to suffrage at the U.S. Capitol, called the Portrait Monument, proudly displays the busts of pioneers Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who launched the women’s movement and first fought for women's right to vote, which was finally granted 144 years after America declared itself a nation of liberty for all. But looking at the statue, you can’t help but notice something odd: it’s apparently incomplete.
Rising up behind the three busts is a vague and conspicuous uncarved block of marble—a mysterious feature that’s sparked much speculation as to its intent. According to urban legend, and many Capitol tour guides, the uncarved lump is reserved for the first woman president. In fact, for many years, visitors have speculated that Hillary Clinton would one day claim the spot.
The monument (formerly called the “Woman’s Movement”) is situated in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, but it didn’t always hold this honored location. When it was first presented to the Congress as a gift from the National Woman’s Party in 1921, the year after suffrage was won, Congress accepted it begrudgingly and stuck it in the Capitol Crypt, essentially hiding it in the basement, where it lived for the next 60 years. They also removed part of the monument's inscription, which contained such provocative lines as "Men their rights and nothing more, Women their rights and nothing less" and "Woman, first denied a soul, then called mindless, now arisen declared herself an entity to be reckoned."
The sculpture was finally moved aboveground to the Rotunda on Mother’s Day weekend in 1997, and rumors started to swirl about who might one day claim the unfinished chunk of marble. In all likelihood however, the sculptor, Adelaide Johnson, intentionally left the statue incomplete to symbolize that women still had a very long way to go before achieving equal rights, and left the unfinished block to represent all other women’s rights leaders, past, present and future. Indeed, Johnson identified as a feminist, not just a suffragist, and has reportedly called the roughly cut marble “a kind of unknown solider of the woman’s movement.” Whether someone will ever “finish” the monument by carving a fourth bust we’ll just have to wait and see. And just maybe, we won’t have to wait much longer.
One of the largest museums in Russia, Ulan-Ude Ethnographic Museum is an open-air museum that hosts a variety of ethnic events each summer, with displays of traditional clothes and ways of life. If you can brave the weather, in winter the likelihood of running into other human beings at the museum is next to none.
The museum is a collection of local (Burytia region) traditional architecture, from Mongolian ger (aka yurt) to reindeer tepees, from barns to churches. Rather than being recent reconstructions, these dwellings were salvaged and transported to the museum grounds, giving it a level of authenticity that is often missing in museums of this kind.
Access to some buildings is allowed, and where it is not allowed you can peer from the front doors, which are usually open. Inside there is a wide array of artifacts including ancient furniture, wooden farming machinery, embroideries, carts and sleds.
