Aigul MYRZATAI
ALMATY, Dec 23
(THE GLOBE)
At the New-Year eve apart from different presents, a bunch of flowers are presented. But scarlet roses or white gladiolus decorate the holiday table not only on this day, but also every day. Woman�s heart is getting warmer even from field flowers presented by her beloved man.
In ancient times when a primitive man brought a bunch of bright fragrant plants to his woman it meant only that she had reached an age when she might become a mother. And he, who is hardly covered by an animal�s skin, wished to help her in this.
Today a bunch presented by man is not perceived so.
The most favorable flower of Josephine, Napoleon�s wife was moderate violet. The French emperor, however, could not submit his wife�s taste. He ordered expensive exotic bunches from all places in the world, and presented her white and scarlet roses, Dutch tulips, but in vain. Josephine�s heart was indifferent to those flowers.
After her husband died, in his memory Josephine planted a field of violets.
Today elegant �European bunches� made by a professional florist are very popular. As a rule, they consist of some flowers, grass and decorative elements. They are not bright.
There are some strict rules to make a bunch: flowers are to occupy a larger space, than a basket, vase and any other vessel. That means that a visible part of a bunch should be two-thirds of the composition. The composition may have the only top � a flower or plant higher than others.
Bunches may be high and wide. Higher and higher flowers are selected to make a high composition. In other cases the diameter at the bottom of the bunch is in focus that gives a wide composition. Wonderful bunches are made asymmetrically, when the top of the bunch is not central. Such bunches are harmonic due to different length of the plants.
To select proper vessels is also important. Fresh small flowers or flowers with a lot of branches look fine in glass and ceramic vases. It is better to put a sophisticated fragile bunch or a single flower, e.g. a rose in a cut-glass vase. Exotic flowers are fine in bronze and copper vases. Otherwise vessels attract more attention than flowers do.
If you make a bunch for a holiday table it should not be either high or wide, in order to be convenient for people sitting at the table. High bunches are for floor vases, wide bunches � for low tables.
We would like to remind you that the coming year is the Year of White Dragon. It is preferable to celebrate the New Year with bright fragrant flowers. Buy a bunch of flowers for your wives, mothers, daughters and beloved women. You will see that your present will be the most valuable and favorable in the New Year.
By Alberto MENGONI
(THE GLOBE)
Up there on the rough hills rolling down to the sea of the incomparably beautiful Italian Riviera, only 5 miles from sunny Bordighera, lays Seborga, a city whose origins are deeply rooted in the first millennium. Already the most ancient document recording the existence of the then village is dated 954 AD, but the community, of course, had been there at least since the 5th century. Nowadays, 1000 years later, old Castrum Sepulcri � this her vintage name � is celebrating the odd but meaningful anniversary of her renown home celebrity, the mint, that after an oblivion of 307 years, has restarted embossing coins on April 23rd, 1995.
The reader will be puzzled and ask himself how comes that an Italian city produces its own money, when the same activity is carried out by the Bank of Italy through its National Mint? Well, the matter is rather complex, but to make a long story short, let�s put it this way: Seborga lays in Italy, but it�s not part of Italy, or so reason the Seborchini.
The story and fate of this little jewel, at 517 meters above sea level, is quite fascinating and spells of an independent principality that with no manifest legal motivations has been engulfed in the Italian surrounding territory when the House of Savoy established the Kingdom of Italy.
The operation of selling the principality governed by monks, ancient Monasterium Lerinense Princeps Sepulcri, to the Duchy of Savoy must have been erroneously conducted by the parties if it is true that in a document recently traced in Berlin, dated 1934, even Mussolini declares that �surely Seborga Principality does not belong to Italy�.
All of you familiar with legal transactions know that an �omissis� or an incomplete procedure may invalidate an act, void a contract, nullify a disposition. What happened with the two parties was that a first contract was signed on 1/31/1697, but in 1702 the transaction was frozen only to be revitalized in 1723. On 11/28/1728 the Pope instructed the archbishop of Embrum to sign the act and finally on 1/20/1729 the deal was struck: the Duchy of Savoy, in the meantime become Kingdom of Sardinia, took possession of the principality which started, soon after, slowly but surely to die.
That act had to be registered to get legal value: it wasn�t. By purpose or forgetfulness it�s hard to say, the result, anyhow, is that in spite of the real passage of money from Victor Amedeo II to the Cistercian monks, the principality, under a purely legal standpoint, has remained independent all along. Consequently all other passages from the Sardinian kingdom to the Italian one, and from the latter to the Republic, which occurred �automatically�, are to be considered illegal.
The Seborchini are very proud of their noble past, indeed have reasons to be so!
The monastery of Seborga was founded by the monks of Lerino, nowadays Cannes, and acquired the right to be a principality of the Holy Roman Empire by superior grant in the year 1079. The new principality was governed by abbots elected princes �pro tempore�, by right then, and not on virtue of descent, to the extent that for some English historians, Seborga constitutes the world�s first constitutional monarchy.
Back to the mint stuff of our interest it can be said that the monks, at first Benedictines, then Cistercians, applied their sovereignity rights in full, so on economic matters too. Given the poor resources of the area � its borders didn�t even reach the nearby Ligurian Sea �in Seborga they established a workshop for the mintage of coins on Christmas Eve 1666. Of course, they did not mint themselves but farmed out the activity to professionals of the trade. So on that December 24th it was Bernardino Bareste of Mougins that got from Cesare Barcillon, Seborga�s abbot-prince, the task of issuing the first Luiginos in precious metals, gold and silver.
The name of the coin, meaning �little Louis�, was attributed to the fact that Seborga�s metal money was exchanged at a quarter the value of a French Louis, hence the diminutive Luigino name.
The existence of the mint was troubled from the very beginning because of the vicinity of Seborga to France and because the monks had their HQ back in Cannes (Lerino), on what today�s known as C�te d�Azur. Well, although the Principality was an independent state, unduly stretching the point that the monks were subdued to a French authority, the King of France issued an order with which it was imposed the closure of Seborga�s mint operation. The king�s scope was that of continuing to enjoy a monopoly regime as for coin circulation in his kingdom, a condition somewhat jeopardized, in the French area near Seborga, by the monks� top quality production.
Bareste for sure run the mint until 1671, considering that during those years the production was so uniform that seldom it might have been minted by different craftsmen.
Among other contractors who run the operation many had been French and one Italian, Paolo Giustiniani. The inappropriate authorization to the mint activity to one such contractor gave the French king the pretext of intervening in Seborga�s coin affair, even if he had nor legal power neither ground to do it.
The monks wanted to get as much money they could and did not hesitate to contract an Huguenot from Nimes that took refuge in Seborga, a certain Monsieur D�Abric (or Daubic). The mint was already a undigestible morsel to swallow for the king, but a protestant running it� That was absolutely unberable! So the king ordered on July 1st, 1686 to void the contract with the Huguenot and to close down the whole operation.
December 24, 1906 Canadian physicist Reginald A. Fessenden became the first person to broadcast a music program over radio, from Brant Rock, Massachusetts.
December 24, 1948 the first completely solar-heated house was occupied by the firsts solar-heated people in Dover MA.
December 24, 1985 a graying beard, olive-green uniform and Cuban cigar � once trademarks of Fidel Castro � were no more. The Cuban president announced that he was a non-smoker.
December 25, 1984 the first man-made comet was visible in the sky on this Christmas Day. The sphere of chemicals from a West German satellite appeared to be ellowish-green, and in the constellation Virgo. Many thought is was Santa taking the quick way back to the North Pole.
December 25, 1991 Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev went on television to announce his resignation.
December 26, 1947 heavy snow blanketed the Northeast, burying New York City under 25.8 inches of snow in 16 hours
December 26, 1982 the man of the year in �Time� magazine was a non-human for the first time. A computer received the honors as 1982�s �greatest influence for good or evil.�
December 27, 1831 naturalist Charles Darwin set out on a voyage to the Pacific. Darwin�s discoveries during the trip helped to form the basis of his theories on evolution.
December 27, 1945 28 nations signed an agreement creating the World Bank.
The Kasteyev State National Museum. Exhibition of S. Kalmykov, I. Itkind, and V. Eifert�s works, and Rudolf Nuriev�s painting.
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