10 February 2016

Ghost on the Danube


There is a spectre haunting these pictures. Visions of a long lost Danubian world coming alive again, like a ghost in an ancient manor house on Alexandru Cristian Beșliu's pictures. He uses Danube View, Google's new development like an expert, on which we can see the river's most scenic part just like as on board of a cruiser ship. Old postcards stick to the Danube View in the Iron Gates, where an island, Ada Kaleh sleeps her dream 33 meters below the Danube's surface.  

A view on the Danube from a porch of Ada Kaleh (imege: Alexandru Cristian Beșliu)
 
Alexandru Cristian Beșliu uploads these postcards pinned to the Danube View images to his own album on facebook. There is a minor distortion, because the Iron Gate I. hydroelectrical dam has been risen the Danube's surface since the pictures were taken, so there is at least 33 meters between the water level of Danube View and of the postcards. The main guidelines are the mountain ranges. 

Images of  the drowned island are not only shocking for those who lived there. We know of many villages like Ada Kaleh, drowned in a reservoir. We may get goose-bumps of the past little enclave of Turkey. The surrealistic view could be intensified with the divers stumbling on the bottom of the Danube.

Turkish houses on the Austrian walls (image by: Alexandru Cristian Beșliu)

Mosque transformed from a XVII. century Franciscan monastery with the old minaret in 1909. (image by: Alexandru Cristian Beșliu)

The mosque's new minaret. (image by: Alexandru Cristian Beșliu)

Mosque of Ada Kaleh, built in the 1720s (image by: Alexandru Cristian Beșliu)

A view on Ada Kaleh (image by: Alexandru Cristian Beșliu)

Many houses were build on the old fortress wall, due to the floods. (image by: Alexandru Cristian Beșliu)

Water sparkling in the moat (image by: Alexandru Cristian Beșliu)

Ruins of the fortress which gave the name of the island (Ada means island and Kale is fort in Turkish language) (image by: Alexandru Cristian Beșliu)
The port of Ada Kaleh (image by: Alexandru Cristian Beșliu)

Ghosts amongst the ruins... (image by: Alexandru Cristian Beșliu)

Characteristic Turkish tombstones in the cemetery, located in the eastern part of the fortress. (image byAlexandru Cristian Beșliu)

The island from the Romanian side - the blue road sign says: Ada Kaleh (image by: Alexandru Cristian Beșliu)


Let's hope there will be more pictures where these came from, and will be no more drowned village like Ada Kaleh!