Latest news with #Templars
Daily Mirror
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Incredible abandoned European town still 'so pretty' but locals cannot return
This southern Italian village was completely abandoned after landslides and earthquakes forced residents to leave, but the crumbling town is increasingly intriguing to travellers As ghost towns go, this one leans more stunning than spooky. Its dramatic setting on a hill in southern Italy gives this abandoned medieval town a distinct appeal for travellers, though it became too dangerous for former residents to remain. Craco is surely one of the most picturesque ghost towns in Europe, if not in the world. It sits on a clifftop between the valleys of the Agri and Salandrella-Cavone rivers. Before its ruin, the village had a prosperous past supposedly linked to the Templars. Craco was abandoned somewhat recently after an unfortunate series of natural disasters forced residents to pick up and move on. Almost all of the town's less than 2,000 inhabitants were moved to a settlement in a nearby valley after a landslide in 1963 - the last in a series of landslides that began at the end of the 19th century. Some contend that the landslides leading up to the 1963 disaster were caused by faulty pipework and excavations in the decades prior. Even the few inhabitants who chose to remain after the landslides were forced to leave when the village was devastated in 1972 by a flood. And when earthquakes hit the town in 1980, the remaining stragglers moved on, leaving it totally abandoned. Since then, Craco has remained relatively untouched and fuelled many mysterious legends. The town's fame became international when it was used as a location for the 2008 James Bond film James Bond, Quantum of Solace, and it continues to attract curious travellers. Craco has served as a filming location for many notable works, in fact. It was also chosen as the location for Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" and Francesco Rosi's "Cristo si è fermato a Eboli". Today, Craco is a collection of ruins though they highlight the rich ancient history of the area. Travellers will come upon ancient churches, such as the Mother Church of San Nicola and the Madonna della Stella church, and noble palaces, from palazzo Carbone to palazzo Grossi. The village has increasingly grown into disrepair as weekends sprout within the churches and balconies and weather-damaged properties continue to rust and disintegrate. That said, Craco has been included on a list of sites that are priorities of the World Monuments Fund. The town can only now be visited as part of guided tours, due to the instability of the buildings. Visitors are required to wear hard hats for their safety. Italy is home to quite a few abandoned towns, though Craco is arguably the most beautiful. Fossa is another Italian village that was left abandoned after natural disasters cause significant damage. When Matt Nadin travelled to Italy to explore the village of Fossa in the L'Aquila region of the country, he found many items had been left behind by families, including a mummified cat. Fossa had been inhabited for around 900 years until an earthquake struck in 2009. The quake caused severe damage to the village's buildings and left 308 people dead. Today the empty streets and abandoned buildings give the village the feeling of a ghost town. Another abandoned town that is gaining attention for the morbidly curious is Varosha. The once-thriving resort town was left abandoned after the Turkish army invaded the northern region of Cyprus on July 20, 1974. While the town remained closed to visitors for many years, in October 2020, a decision was made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the then prime minister of Northern Cyprus, Ersin Tatar, to reopen the area to tourists. More than 1.8 million tourists have visited the ghost town in the last four years - according to statistics released in 2024.
Arab News
11-04-2025
- General
- Arab News
‘Lodge of Hope': Karachi's Freemasons building repurposed for wildlife preservation
KARACHI: On Karachi's Strachan Road, where traffic rarely slows and history is easy to miss, a grand neoclassical building stands quietly between the past and the present. Known as the 'Lodge of Hope,' the building was Karachi's principal Freemasons Hall, one of four in the city during British rule and standing to date as a reflection of the city's colonial inheritance and postcolonial socio-political evolution. Flanked by tall Greek columns, their concrete softened by time, the building now houses the Sindh Wildlife Department's offices, a natural history museum and a public library. But long before schoolchildren and researchers wandered through its storied halls to marvel at preserved specimens of leopards, birds and reptiles, this was a place plagued by secrecy and suspicion. Built around 1914 after a storm destroyed the fraternity's earlier structure near the exclusive members-only Sindh Club, it served as the meeting place for members of the global freemason brotherhood whose rituals, symbols and origins trace back to the cathedral builders of medieval Europe. What began as an elite and exclusive institution gradually became the subject of public fascination and fear, its secrecy spawning stories, conspiracy theories and, in time, an outright ban. Freemasonry is a fraternal organization, not a religion, with roots in medieval stonemason guilds, emphasizing brotherhood, charity, and moral development through rituals and symbolic teachings. Controversy surrounding freemasonry stems from a few key factors, including its secretive nature, perceived elitism, religious and political affiliations, and the prevalence of conspiracy theories surrounding its alleged power and influence on world events. 'The masons are those who were called previously the Templars,' explained Dr. Kaleemullah Lashari, a historian and archaeologist who played a key role in the building's conservation between 2008 and 2011. 'The first Lodge, as the story goes, was constructed where the present Sindh Club [in Karachi] is and while the Sindh Club emerged, and the Sindh Club had this opportunity to expand itself, so the Freemasons Lodge was given another alternate place, which is here on Strachan Road.' Membership of the lodge was open to anyone — Muslim, Hindu, Parsi or Christian — who embraced the masonic ideals of fraternity and self-improvement but the secretive rituals and symbols raised suspicion. 'The people thought that they [freemasons] were doing something very secretive,' Lashari said. 'This is the reason that people used to call it 'jadu ka ghar' [house of magic].' Dr. Tauseef Ahmed Khan, an academic interested in Karachi's history, described the lodge as an 'elite club' during the years of British rule. 'Very few people were given membership, and they were all elite people, noblemen, bureaucrats, and then a lot of conspiracy theories were also spread,' he added. 'ESPIONAGE' Among the suspicions was that the Freemasons building was being used for espionage. Subsequently, in 1972, amid political turbulence and rising nationalist sentiment, a staff member of a foreign mission in Karachi, who happened to be a freemason, was accused of smuggling arms into Pakistan, leading to an official ban on freemasonry. Following this development, the building changed hands several times, briefly accommodating the Press Information Department before falling into disrepair. That changed in 1982 when the Sindh Wildlife Department moved in. 'This place has become a ray of hope for wildlife,' said Javed Ahmed Mahar, a conservator at the Sindh Wildlife Department. 'We have also worked on its decoration and embellishment. If you look at its comparative images in the last 2–3 years, you will see that there is a great difference here.' The building is also home to Sindh Wildlife Library and over 9,000 books. 'There are a lot of rare books here,' Shahid Ali Khan, the dedicated librarian who has served here for four decades, said. 'There are a lot of books that are not available in the market right now. These are handwritten books.' Despite its rebirth, the building still wears its past. Inspired by classical Greek temples with their ornate columns and symmetrical layout, the structure also incorporates Edwardian features such as dual reception rooms flanking the main entrance. Today, the building is not only architecturally unique but also functionally vital, one of the few government spaces in Pakistan that have been both historically preserved and actively repurposed. 'This is more than just an office or museum,' Mahar said, 'it's our cultural heritage.'
