Is an amphitheatre place where gladiators fight with wild animals and each other or a place of song and fairy dances, and it is worth to spend a half of the national income to build a church? All that in this week's issue.
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Côte d'Ivoire
West side of African continent hides its jewel, currently the largest basilica in the world Notre Dame de la Paix. During the 60s, Côte d'Ivoire president Felix Houptou't-Boigny started to spend money very lavishly in his birth village Yamoussoukro, which resulted in bizarre example to others what not to do when you are loaded with money. He started to build eight line highway lighted with more than 10.000 lights that ends in a desert. He replaced traditional African houses with modern concrete houses and at that time no similar village existed in the whole Africa.
And this is not the end of the bizarre examples. He started to build the basilica in 1986 using the model of St. Peter basilica in Vatican City, Italy, and it was finished in only three years, in 1989. This project cost Ivory Coast 300 million dollars, the half of national income at the time, unreasonable move because the state then counted hardly a dozen of Catholics.
Today, when you enter through its door, its prettiness, elegance and grace left you speechless. And you can see what money can buy, indeed. Pierre Fakhoury, its architect, used Yamoussoukro's unusual pink sand to create the unique couloirs. The mix of ancient Greek-Roman stile with the African decorative elements and a little bit of touch from the other civilisations give basilica its unique attractiveness.
It was built in a round form, the arch is from coloured glass and dedicated to Virgin Mary. The rest 36 glasses make 7.400 square metres long church wall that offers magnificent African experience when sun comes and lightens the coloured pieces.
On the round platform in the middle of the church stands main marble altar with high brass baldachin covered with bronze. The statues inside the church are in Euro-African style and the most famous one is "Queen of the peace", the reproduction from Vatican's basilica. In the front of the church is a huge three hectares space that can hug more than 200.000 believers which welcomed a dove with spread wings as the symbol of the Holly Spirit that protects and gathers all the people on the Earth.
Croatia
Once upon a time one young boy lived in a forest cottage. He sung a song every evening on his way back home from the sea and his beautiful voice attracted forest fairies to listen. They enjoyed in his song every night, disguised as a trees. One day the young boy became suspicious that the forest is spelled, he packed his things and sail to the next lagoon and start to build a new cottage.
The next day, on their horror, a fairies noticed that he vanished. They flew to every side of the Earth just to find him. Soon they found him and showed themselves to him in the shapes of beautiful girls with long golden hair. Young boy looked at them surprised and scared.
One of the willows stepped in the front of him and said: "We can not live without your beautiful song. Let us to build you a palace instead of your cottage. In return, allow us to listen to your song." The boy agreed. From that day the fairies came every night to listen him undisguised until the last of his legatees vanished from the face of the Earth. Than, the fairies left the palace.
And that was just a fairytale that describes people's imagination. Settled in Istra, one of Croatian's regions, the city of Pula offers a view on a rare example of 200 Roman surviving amphitheatres. Pula's Arena is the sixth largest in the World. It was built in the 2nd century during the domination of emperor Augustus. The amphitheatres were covered to protect the audience from the sun and rain. Like every Roman amphitheatre, that was the place for gladiator fights and other spectacles of that time.
Today, it is a true example for learning the traditional methods of antique building because of its specific construction and beautiful stage for summer concerts and film festivals.
Arena got the most beautiful and spectacular honour when Croatian alpinists banded it with the "mega cravat" few years ago. After two days of hard work Arena gained 808 metres long tie. On its widest part it was 25 metres, the knot was 15 metres long, 16.5 metres wide on its widest part and 5.4 metres wide on its thinnest part. If you are around the Istria, visit Pula's Arena and feel its spirit from the inside. ■
