Love mingled with grief…

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” The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.”

~ J.R.R. Tolkien ~

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Yasuke, the only African samurai

One of the best-known non-Japanese samurais was the 16th-century African slave who went by the name of Yasuke. He was reportedly the first African man to come to Japan, and because of his origin, many people gathered around him after he arrived to take a closer look.

Yasuke was in the service of the Italian Jesuit Alessandro Valignano, the man appointed to inspect the Jesuit missions in the Indies. Later, he was made a samurai by the ruler and hegemon Oda Nobunaga, who wanted Yasuke as his bodyguard. The Japanese were so unused to Africans, the warlord ordered him to take off his clothes to have servants try to wash out the “black ink” from his skin.

Skating on frozen Lake Baikal

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Skaters in Siberia enjoy some of the season’s last trips across frozen Lake Baikal, the world’s oldest and deepest lake.

 

One of the most beautiful and visited places in Russia is Lake Baikal. It is located on the border of the Irkutsk region and the Republic of Buryatia.

This place has conquered the hearts not only local tourists, but the foreigners too. The Baikal is rightly called the “The Holy Sea” and “The Diamond of the Planet”, but even these phrases are not enough to describe all his charm.