With commentary on the beautiful images of Caucasian peoples from the Russian Ethnographic Museum.,St Petersburg exhibited at the Hessenhuis, Antwerp in 2001
The Russian love affair with the Caucasus has been long and cruel, though the outside world knows little of the multitude of ethnic groups who for millennia have inhabited this remote strip of land the size of France. In 2001, however, a remarkable catalogue was published. It reveals a unique collection of artefacts which for years have stood gathering dust in the vaults of a St Petersburg museum. Here Robert Chenciner examines the book and introduces a selection of its poignant photographs.
Wedding party: The young Crimean bride in the centre and her sisters-in-law wear silk dresses with lace ruffs and cuffs. Heavy jewellery is much in evidence: silver-gilt filigree belts, a 'tablet' bead necklace from Central Asia, nikolai coins covering a fez, and gold talisman brooches.
Special offer: Buy the book plus Issue 28 for only £29.95
Nogai wedding yurt with a dowry of camels. The style of felt applique work covering the door and the windows is found to this day further east in the Nogais' original homelands in Kazakhstan and Mongolia
Photographs: Russian Ethnographic Museum, St Petersburg / Hessenhuis, Antwerp. All rights reserved
The paintings of Fausto Zonaro Philip Mansel on the Ottoman court painter Fausto Zonaro, whose work is commemorated in a landmark biography published this year to coincide with a major exhibitionof his work in Istanbul.
Zonaro's 1896 canvas of the Ertugrul cavalry parade first brought him to the attention of the Sultan
Hidden Treasures Important blue and white in Istanbul's Ibrahim Pasha Palace (Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art) by John Carswell
In an exhibition of art from the vaults of the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art in Istanbul, John Carswell discovers the first blue and white porcelain ever recorded in Europe.
The Chinese porcelain pieces exhibited for the first time were preserved in an Ottoman soup kitchen in the Balkans for 450 years. The swirling phoenixes are 14th century and the first blue and white ever recorded in Europe
John Carswell's book Chinese Porcelain Around the World is excerpted in Cornucopia 25
Ephemera A solo exhibition of the photographs of Barbara and Zafer Baran at the Blue Gallery, London Each of these delicately tinted, large-scale photographic works - is roughly a metre square.
Cornucopia 25: Zafer Baran's abstract images were the subject of the cover story of Cornucopia's twenty-fifth issue in 2002.
For further information about the Barans' work visit their website, www.zb-baran.co.uk, and to contact the artist themselves, write to mail@zb-baran.co.uk
Black Sea
Peak performance A 24-page celebration of Turkey's alpine Black Sea mountains by Ali Özgü Caneri and Kate Clow Photographs: Kate Clow
Turkey’s Kaçkar Mountains, a daunting extension of the Caucasus high above the Black Sea, are only for the intrepid. Ali Özgü Caneri and Kate Clow took advantage of the short trekking season to scale two of the saw-edged summits.
An enterprising villager has erected this drinking fountain beside the newly bulldozed dirt road between the villages of Yaylalar (in the background) and Kara Molla. Water gushes into a carved wooden bowl.
For much of the year the Kackars are enveloped in mist, which descends on trekkers at the stone bridge at Davili Yaylasi. The bridge takes most of the traffic up to higher pastures. Many of the valleys retain vestiges of such fine stonework
Georgia on my mind Text and photographs by Min Hogg
Turkey’s northeastern neighbour, Georgia, is a fairy tale country with a hard edge, and its entrancing landscape of isolated hilltop cathedrals and medieval monasteries just demands to be explored. Min Hog, founding editor of World of Interiors, tells the story of her visit in words and pictures.
The citadel of Ananuri, one of the many poweful feudal strongholds built in Georgia's Caucasus Mountains in the 16th and 17th centuries.
A bride at the hilltop church of Jvari, above Mtskheta, ancient capital of Georgia.
Trotsky on Prinkipo By Norman Stone Photographs from the David King Collection, London
Exiled by Stalin in 1929, Trotsky went to live on the Princes Islands near Istanbul. For four years he fished, wrote and developed the doctrine of Trotskyism. These remarkable photographs from the David King Collection show a quiet, ordered existence. Norman Stone uncovers the plotting that lay behind it
Dome from dome Inside the Russian churches of Karaköy by Owen Matthews with photographs by Simon Wheeler
Built as way-stations for Orthodox pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land or Mount Athos, the rooftop Russian churches of Karakoy are a forgotten corner of the motherland in the heart of Istanbul.
Cookery
Golden opportunity Text, recipes and photographs by Berrin Torolsan
Carrots have a colourful past and the gift of making us see in the dark, but there is more to them than meets the eye.
Carrots, I confess, never seemed wildly exciting to me. There were always there - so you never had a chance to miss them - but they weren't on a par with aubergines, say, or artichokes. I'm sure I am not alone. Cookery writers rarely dwell on them. Yet the more I learn about carrots, the more fascinating they become...
Recipes in this issue:
Havuç Çorbasi Carrot Soup
Havuç Püresi Carrot Purée
Havuç Tava Crispy Fritters with Hazelnut Tarator Sauce
Havuç Tursusu Pickled Carrot
Havuç Salatasi Salad of Grated Carrots
Havuçlu Kek Carrot and Walnut Cake
Havuç Helvasi Carrot Sweetmeat
For a complete list of Berrin Torolsan's cookery stories in Cornucopia, see our cookery index. Selected recipes are also available online: menus.
Also in this issue Kevin Gould assesses the merits of Raki, Ouzo and Pernod. And see Cornucopia 38 for the Great Cornucopia Raki tasting
Love's labour The art of filigree by Berrin Torolsan
As every Turkish girl will tell you, a bride's best friend is a telkari, or filigree, amulet. Berrin Torolsan vists the last place in the country where they are made.
Book reviews
By Maureen Freely, Antony Wynn, David Barchard and Venetia Porter
Nazim Hikmet: where passion meets politics; Monica Whitlock: the need to heed the Muslim message; Godfrey Goodwin: memoirs of a gentleman scholar; Clive Smith: high drama in sixteenth-century Yemen
