1) Tanger (Fred37, France)
2) Danzig (Grinya, Russia)
3) Armavir (Grinya, Russia)
4) Hejaz (Grinya, Russia)
5) île Sainte-Marie, nowadays Nosy Boraha, off the coast of Madagascar (Fred37, France)
6) Alwar (mr.ryujino116, India)
7) Kingdom of the two Sicilies (Grinya, Russia)
8) Obock (Gros, France)
9) Tannu Tuva (Grinya,Russia)
10) Elobey, Annobón y Corisco (tonidefrancia, France)
11) Ryūkyū kingdom (Fred37, France)
12) South Shetland islands (Gros, France)
13) Hatay state (Grinya, Russia)
14) Tierra del Fuego (Grinya, Russia)
15) Saseno nowadays Sazan off the coast of Vlore, Albania (Grinya, Russia)
You are skilled in history and geography.
Normal, you’re a coin collector.
Are you skilled enough to win the game ?
Each night, there will be 5 descriptions of countries that once existed but now have been erased from the map. Varying vastly in size and shape, location and longevity, they are united by one fact: all of them endured long enough to issue their own coins, banknotes or stamps.
The game is only a question of speed. If one country description doesn’t mean anything to you, skip it cause another collector will know. Each answer must contain the question number and the name of the country. You can give as many answers as you want and do not try to find all the answers at once, otherwise you migth get caught.
For example, let’s try this definition of a "country" encompassing some islands that issued stamps during the second world war :
1) For the German parachutists slowly descending through the light cloud on 1940, they must have looked like a collection of intensely green grassy hillocks scattered at random across the blue sea. And the further they descended, the clearer it would have become that the main industry here must be agriculture, and that it was an easy business. It was all gentle slopes with no sign of mountains or forest areas. And at the end of the shallow coves lay small, whitewashed villages and the occasional larger harbour town with quays and breakwater.
I'll meet you tomorrow, Easter Monday at 9 p.m. France, 8 p.m. England, 3 p.m. New York, 7 a.m. New zealand well it's a bit early ...
Quote: "Frenchlover"You are skilled in history and geography.
Normal, you’re a coin collector.
Are you skilled enough to win the game ?
Each night, there will be 5 descriptions of countries that once existed but now have been erased from the map. Varying vastly in size and shape, location and longevity, they are united by one fact: all of them endured long enough to issue their own coins, banknotes or stamps.
The game is only a question of speed. If one country description doesn’t mean anything to you, skip it cause another collector will know.
One answer, one by one cause it's a matter of speed, should only contain the country number and its name.
For example, let’s try this definition of a "country" encompassing some islands that issued stamps during the second world war :
1) For the German parachutists slowly descending through the light cloud on 1940, they must have looked like a collection of intensely green grassy hillocks scattered at random across the blue sea. And the further they descended, the clearer it would have become that the main industry here must be agriculture, and that it was an easy business. It was all gentle slopes with no sign of mountains or forest areas. And at the end of the shallow coves lay small, whitewashed villages and the occasional larger harbour town with quays and breakwater.
I'll meet you tomorrow, Easter Monday at 9 p.m. France, 8 p.m. England, 3 p.m. New York, 7 a.m. New zealand well it's a bit early ...
I will never wake up that early! (Though I also have no internet access at that hour...)
-1) A modern-day Sodom.
With yellow masonary shining, the lighthouse stands on a cliff some 300 meters above the turbulent Atlantic Ocean. The tower containing the verdigris-coated lantern is square and built in the style of a Moorish fortress, complete with embrasures. The structure was completed in 1864, an international collaboration in which the USA and Europe's major shipping nations - among them Britain, France and Spain - signed a reciprocal agreement for its management and maintenance in perpetuity.
-2) Sponge cake with Hitler
To celebrate the National Socialists' victory in this country’s parliamentary elections in 1933,
Hitler issues an invitation to an afternoon of coffee and cakes at his Reich Chancellery in Berlin:
'They were literally coffee and cakes, "just like mother", Streuselkuchen and Arapfkuchen (German teacake specialties). And Hitler was the Hausfrau. He was in a gay mood, and almost amiable.’
This country lays in a fertile delta. Apart from smaller hilly areas in the west, it consisted entirely of first-class agricultural land, flat and easy to cultivate. This, combined with its strategic location, had made it coveted and disputed territory over the centuries. And its bustling harbour town was the jewel of the crown.
-3) Quite rare and expensive coins
While there were numerous banknotes issued during the Russian Civil War, there were very few coins issued during this period probably because the climate was so unstable with territories being passed back and forth between the rival factions, and the quick loss in value of the currency, they probably decided it wasn't worth it to mint coins. Thus they stuck with issuing paper money was easier to print in larger quantities.
This ‘country’ is not even referenced as an independent issuer of its own local coinage in the Numista directory. They had three denominations 1, 3 and 5 Ruble coins (the 5 Ruble coin being the rarest of the three), all dated 1918. All coins from this area carry the double-headed eagle stripped of it's crown and regalia, symbolizing Russia's former glory.
-4) A new kingdom
On the seaward side of this new kingdom, the coastal plain quickly rose up into ridges and plateaux, then into a chain of mountains more than 2000m high that served as a barrier against the limitless desert which extends on the other side.
It is summer 1916 in Cairo.
The First World War has already been raging across Europe for two years.
Egypt has also been touched by these events. The year before, Ottoman forces on the German side made an attempt to capture Suez, but gave up after an effective British pushback.
Two British officers, Thomas Edward Lawrence and Ronald Storrs, are on their way up the steps of the red building that houses Egypt's history museum. They're looking for motifs for the stamps of a new kingdom. Just a couple of months earlier, it had declared its liberation from Ottoman rule, but, as so often elsewhere, the British have been pulling the strings. The people of this new kingdom aren't even allowed to choose their own stamps. Still, the British do accept the ground rule that no portraits must be used: Islam forbids the depiction of people.
-5) Civilized panic in a tropical Utopia.
Some time in the early 2000s, a Norwegian author travelled with his family to an island located in the Indian Ocean, in search of a peaceful place to write. The island had been a French colony since the end of the 1800s.
Although this isle meets all expectations of South Sea harmony - with high sun, swaying coconut palms and white beaches - the young family's stay there proved anything but romantic. Their encounters with the locals were far from reassuring and the local wildlife was repulsive. A short way from the beach, black ants, cockroaches and rats ruled the roost. And hordes of land crabs made evening walks a revolting experience. This isle is no place for sensitive authors in search of peace and quiet.
But we can assume that the island seemed more than good enough for the European pirates who lived there for nearly two centuries. It ticked all the boxes: close to the trading routes from Asia; sheltered harbours and unlimited access to water, as well as fruit, meat and seabird eggs; and palm sap than can easily be fermented to make wine and distilled into a rum-like spirit. What’s more, the island was full of beautiful women.
By the end of 1600s, more than 1,500 pirates were living here and the economy was good or even sustainable, as we’d put it today. This is the situation that prevails when some French pirates take the initiative to establish here an anarchist colony.
They seem like anti-capitalists, with their declared aim of plundering the rich and sharing out the booty. They also resolutely opposed to church, monarchy and anything else that smacks the authority. They themselves practice direct democracy, which is organized through a council of representatives from the different pirate groups. Anybody who tries to accumulate personal power or thwart the will of his own voters may be recalled with immediate effect. This island is also a cashless economy, and all agricultural activity is carried out collectively. The booty from the pirate is shared out equally, and the local population is also taken care of.
Unlike other pirate-ships, the ones from this island sail under a white flag. When they capture one of the many slave ships crossing the oceans in those days, they immediately set free the prisoners, who are also offered the opportunity to live on the island and to share in the piracy. The resulting ethnic mix eventually gives rise to a unique dialect that steadily becomes more incomprehensible to anybody but the island’s own inhabitants. This helps strengthen the sense of fellowship.
A message right here. There are easy to find countries and some other you might never have heard about, so once you find a country post immediately a message.
-6) A princely state, roughly the size of North Yorkshire
This is the first princely state to sign a treaty of cooperation : a treaty of offensive and defensive alliance with the East India Company in 1803. Its maharaja led a dynasty descended from the Rajput warrior caste. The treaty secured him a large income while placing him beyond the reach of possible challengers to the throne. The company had his back.
Even so, the maharaja felt insecure enough to opt to settle scores with all the Muslims in the area. He burned their mosques and systematically chopped off noses and ears, which were then sent by the crate-load to Muslim princes elsewhere in the region. The bones of those he killed were also dispatched out of the country. The East India Company became uneasy, foreseeing prolonged problems with the Muslims, who made up a large share of the population in many Indian states. After threats from the company army, the maharaja gave in and agreed that there would be no repeat.
-7) Bottomless poverty and weary aristocrats.
Meat, cakes, fruit and fist-sized balls of chalk-white mozzarella, all stuck together with minced sardines, tripe and olives to form a conical mountain of food - like a Vesuvius in miniature - that glitters juicily in the afternoon sun on the cobblestones in front of the castle in Naples. A cannon salute gives the ravenous mob its signal. A salvo of limp applause comes from the long-since overfed aristocrats on the balconies. The enormously fat king, far more eager than the rest, drums his fingers nervously on the parapet. Extract from : « Volcano Lover : A Romance » Susan Sontag (1992)
After the Napoleonic intermedium, the king returned to power of kingdom following the peace congress in Vienna. On this occasion, the kingdom changed its name. For the king, the main interest in life was hatching spectacular ideas for the next grand gala. Such occasion allowed a little of his wreath to trickle down directly to the common people – something that otherwise was a rare moment. He was heading a thoroughly aristocratic administration that had no interest whatsoever in anything but the well-being of the upper class.
-8) Arms dealing and goat soup.
The area was bought by France and was little more than a desolate fishing village surrounded by an olive-green desert, the sand of which was somewhat coarser than in other deserts.
The atmosphere feels uninhibited and it is all too easy for a newly arrived colonial official to get caught up in the social excesses of the place. Partway through the welcome party, he wanders off drunkenly and finds himself lost on the rugged, crooked paths beyond the orderly colonial administration quarter, with its single-storey whitewashed brick buildings. Out here, the local population lives in simple huts made of twigs, straw and clay. It is a clear, starry night but dark nonetheless, with just the flicker of an occasional oil lamp. He stumbles, his bottle of liquorice liquor smashes and his mouth is filled with sand. Dogs bark. Somebody takes him in their arms. He wakes up early next morning, leaning against a bundle of furs. His head is swimming. Looking up, he can see daylight coming through the roof of woven grass matting. A woman serves him goat soup and bread, but he can't bring himself to eat it. He feels dreadful. But in the midst of it all, he feels a rush of relief at the thought that the rest of his family stayed behind in France.
The colonial official was assigned to the first French colony in the Red Sea region. In its heyday, it was home to around 2,000 people. Other than the colonial administration and some semi-official tradesman, many of them being adventurers and pretty criminals, drawn by the local king who had boasted of his massive stores of ivory and other riches. One of the fortune hunters was the French poet Arthur Rimbaud.
-9) A close country with expensive coins nowadays
In his 1931 book, an Austrian writer travels with a single goal in mind: to place a monument in the geographic centre of all the parts of the world with the inscription `I was here at the centre of this continent'. It is easy to picture him: clean-shaven, tanned, a mop of fair hair and slightly worn khaki trousers laced up the sides. He peers out across the immense carpet of grass that stretches as far as the Altai Mountains in the south. He stands there, self-satisfied, hands on hips. He has already dealt with Africa and North and South America. Now Asia, too, has been conquered. The continent’s midpoint is said to be a hilltop right beside a village of this country. The memorial stone placed there will later be removed and replaced with a concrete Soviet sculpture. Coins of this country are so rare nowadays that one must be really careful not to buy fakes ones. There are people, though, who are selling their fake coins for equal prices as the authentic ones.
-10) Crossroad of imperialism influence
Put four islands at the geographic meeting point of three colonialist empires: Portugal, French and Spain. It makes them of strategic geopolitical interest with querels during the XVIIIth and XIXth century. Add the discovery of oil during the XXth century and you necessarily get incessant disputes up to major international courts that continue up to the 21st century.
The closest isle to the coast was the most inhabited with a nice harbor. It was also on the route the missionaries took on their way over to the mainland. Living on this small piece of land avoided encountering the tse-tse fly and the incurable sleeping sickness. A trading station was established there to handle exports of ivory, palm oil, rubber, mahogany and ebony from the mainland. At the same time, weapons, ammunition, textiles and liquor were brought in. This island is now uninhabited, covered with a green-black forest.
A little further, a little larger island, but with not more than a handful of fishermen's houses.
You have to move away from a few miles to finally find a large island with its international airport! Well, 14 sq. km is not very big either, the size of a village. Its little sandy beach looks as white as chalk, with just a hint of a pinkish dove colour in the curving strip dampened by the waves that roll in continuously from the South Atlantic ocean. The isle is a forest. Here and there you may find one of these wild fig, the bark of which is grey-white like the beech trees.
Furthest out to sea lies the main island. Although it is the largest of the four islands, it is still only around 7 km (4 miles) long north to south, and 4 km (a little over 2 miles) wide at most. It is very hilly, with extinct volcanoes encircled by dense forests and undergrowth that extend all the way down to the seashore. The Creole population is descended from slaves and Portuguese settlers. At the beginning of the 1500s, they chopped down the best timber, so there is little of value here.
This forth and larger island gets an historical reputation of rebels. But another scandal darkens the lives of the inhabitants, that of barrels containing radioactive waste which would have been sent by the bottom to the outskirts of the island. It is then necessary to note that diseases appear, that the fish becomes rarer, and it would be necessary to study further the question: the coconut palms start to die one after the other, whereas they are one of the pillars of the kitchen traditional inhabitants.
So, what was the name of this former Spanish colony ?
You're dammed right
It was formerly spelt as Ulwar but in the reign of Jai Singh the spelling was changed to Alwar thereby advancing the princely state's position not just in the alphabet but also in the queue for many of the bureaucartic processes then under way in India
-11) The archipelago where the fair-haired heroine Black Mamba, all yellow dressed, acquired her ruthless weapon.
Visitor to this archipelago will be astonished by all the languages. There are at least six of them, and they are barely intelligible among themselves. He will also hear about life in the villages through mild winters and hot, humid summers. He will be led from the beach up to the terraces of sugar cane, sweet potato and tobacco, and be shown huge camphor trees and, a little further off, the mulberry trees that are the silkworms' grazing grounds. On a fine day, it is difficult to imagine the tropical cyclones that can appear without warning, laying waste to whole islands.
The archipelago spans several degrees of latitude, forming a chain of more than a hundred volcanic islands. For several hundred years, the archipelago was an independent kingdom up to the 1800s.
Later on, the colonizer imposed its own language as the sole language in the schools. Among other animals, they introduced the Indian mongoose - a feline bundle of fur with razor-sharp teeth to control the massive snake population. However, the plan went awry when the mongooses turned out to be almost as keen on other species. And since they themselves had no natural enemies on the island, they rapidly became pests themselves.
Well … finally, the solution is sometimes easier to find in the title of the document than in its content.
-12) Penguins in the oven on a territory without sovereign
At first it reminds the classic cartoon “Santa’s workshop” of 1932 where the toys in a Christmas present factory are queuing up to be painted by eager elves. In this archipelago, though, these aren't toys but real penguins - dressed as always in their suits, inquisitive, chattering and erect. Unfortunately they're not waiting in line to be painted, but to serve as fuel in the enormous cod liver oil refinery. They are hoisted up by their wings and heaved in one after the other. The fatty bundles make the bonfires flare. None of the areas in the world has seen more blood than here, if we include animals in the grim calculation. In addition to the penguins, enormous numbers of seals and whales were caught and slaughtered up until the 1960s, to be used as raw material for cod liver oil, margarine and feed concentrate. A single blue whale contains 10,000 litres of blood. Without wishing to draw comparisons, by the way, this corresponds to 2,000 beings; or to put it another way, the combined blood loss of the Norwegian military forces throughout the whole of the Second World War.
Even in the 1914-1915 season, as many as 1,800 blue whales were dragged ashore on these islands.
Towards 1930, the number had doubled, supplemented by the capture of other species, such as finback, humpback and sperm whales.
It was the large population of fur seals that first drew British trappers to the islands in the 1820s. Later came the whalers.
There were generally over 2,000 men at work. The whale carcasses were cut up roughly on the flensing deck down by the shore. After that the meat was scraped off and the blubber cooked down to whale oil.
-13) Genocide and a rigged referendum
On 16 September 1916, the Ottoman Secretary of the Interior, Talaat Pasha, issued a directive on the deportation of all Armenians living in Turkey:
“Anybody who opposes this order cannot be reckoned a friend of the regime. Regardless of whether they are women, children or sick, no matter how grim the means of destruction can seem, an end must be made to their existence, without heed to feelings or conscience.”
After several hundred years of flourishing ethnic diversity, a strongly nationalistic movement had developed in the Turkish part of the Ottoman Empire. It demanded ethnic cleansing. Before the end of 1916, between half a million and a million of them were killed in the massacre that would later be known as the Armenian genocide.
The persecution had extended down in the south at the gateway to the Arabian Peninsula, where military leaders such as Alexander the Great and Richard the Lionheart had passed through
with their armies. And, every time, they had left the area ravaged - there was a lot worth taking from the extensive and fertile shores. At the same time, the population had become an ever-more diverse mixture of Syrians, Greeks, Circassians, Jews, Kurds and Armenians - in addition to a large group of Turks.
The landscape lies exhausted in the oppressive heat, the sun burns from a sky that has not seen a cloud for months, it scorches, white-hot and annihilating, over every living thing ... then lies the mighty plain, surrounded by mountains. The Orontes winds its sluggish, dirty yellow ribbon across it, on its way to the Mediterranean.
After the Ottomans were defeated in the First World War, France and England carved up the central parts of the Middle East between them. The basis for division was determined by oil, both deposits and transport routes. The French got the northern sector, but they were quickly challenged by the Turkish Republic, which had grown out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.
In order to cairn things down, the League of Nations, France and Great Britain drew up a constitution that would be the basis for establishing a neutral and independent country in the area.
A new republic was proclaimed.
Soon afterwards, the ethnic Turks win a parliamentary majority during a rigged election. That terrifies Armenians along with large groups of Arabs, Greeks, Jews and Kurds. Many of them flee across the borders, to the south and east. This exodus is hastened by the large Turkish forces that are sent in to uphold law and order.
The independent republic lasted only on year and then the territory was officially attached to Turkey. This republic is supposed to be the scene of one of the adventures of Indiana Jones, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, whose action takes place precisely in 1938.
-14) Dictator in gold
it could have been a painful stopover for Frodo in his heroic quest towards Mordor with the locals lighting interconnected and unusually smoky bonfires along the shoreline, which gave name to this remote country centuries ago. It is a land of all extremes, labyrinth of bays, coves and fjords. Here, you first encounter a series of low, grassy islands, dense with forest. The further west, the hillier the terrain become, culminating in the high, sharp mountain chains interspersed with glaciers where the land met the Ocean.
Same picture for the climate: a short, cold and damp summer, violent storms throughout the year.
Although this land was long deemed economically uninteresting, the situation quickly changed when gold was found in the area in the 1800s.
This desolated land never became a separate country, although it would soon seem to be once an adventurer came on the scene at the end of the nineteen century.
Although he was only twenty-nine, his hair was already thinning, but he compensated for it amply with a neatly trimmed moustache and a full beard. He was Romanian, born into a Jewish family in Bucharest, and had trained as an engineer in Paris. He had since travelled the length and breadth of the planet, via Egypt, China and Siberia and as far as the American continent, working as an itinerant expert in expansion and modernization. In Cuba, he helped breathe new life into the seafront at Havana by designing a modern city plan.
Leading a heavily armed expedition, he soon found large quantities of gold in the area.
He quickly made a name for himself as a man about town with a large appetite for champagne and caviar. He always wore a uniform and established a hundred-strong private army whose members all dressed up in brilliantly coloured regalia, and where nobody was ranked below lieutenant. The army was constantly on the move, punishing thieves and unauthorized gold-diggers with great brutality. After a while, they also started hunting down the indigenous people when the British settlers put large flocks of sheep out to pasture, the indigenous people assumed they were fair game, and embarked on a massive hunt. That is what sparked the genocide.
-15) The world's most dismal place.
Homer's epic poem The Odyssey, from 700 ac, describes Odysseus's journey home from the Trojan War. Along the way, he sails past the island of Ogygia, home to a nymph called Calypso, who is the daughter of the Titan Atlas. She captures the ship and puts the warriors on a diet of bread and water for seven years.
Historians are unanimous in the view that much of the Odyssey is based on actual events, and Ogygia is said to be identical to this little island by the mouth of the Adriatic Sea. One objection to this must be that this island has absolutely no water sources. How even a nymph could survive there, let alone in the company of Odysseus and his thirsty crew, is a mystery.
But although the island is dry as a bone and correspondingly barren, it has always been coveted. Long before modern times, it was already occupied by pirates - perhaps a more sober term for a nymph - then later by great powers such as Turkey, Greece and England, and repeatedly by Italy. It measures less than 6 sq. km and emerges from the sea like the back of a mangy brown camel, its two humps rising to a height of just over 300 m.
And that's all folks !
For obvious copyright purpose I can’t plagiarize all anecdotes and stories of this book even if each one is a piece of history. I made a game to invite you to read this book which I found fascinating. You’ll find dozens of other stories in this following book from Bjørn Berge, who has long dreamed of surveying all the shores of the world on foot, inviting us to a double journey in a room, in the quirks of History and of Geography. He is consequently a fervent ecologist. It is the work of a history enthusiast, pedestrian explorer of the shores and collector of the objects that the sea deposits there.
I hope you enjoyed these riddles and
Bravo to the two winners Grinya and Fred37 !
I’ll send them a copy of this book in English, because I didn’t find a Russian version so far, and in French !
Nowherelands, An Atlas of Vanished Countries 1840-1975, Bjørn Berge
Description:
These are the stories of fifty countries that once existed but have now have been erased from the map. Varying vastly in size and shape, location and longevity, they are united by one fact: all of them endured long enough to issue their own stamps.
Some of their names, such as Biafra or New Brunswick, will be relatively familiar. Others, such as Labuan, Tannu Tuva, and Inini, are far less recognizable. But all of these lost nations have stories to tell, whether they were as short- lived as Eastern Karelia, which lasted only a few weeks during the Soviet– Finnish War of 1922, or as long- lasting as the Orange Free State, a Boer Republic that celebrated fifty years as an independent state in the late 1800s. Their broad spectrum reflects the entire history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with its ideologies, imperialism, waves of immigration, and conflicts both major and minor.
The motifs and symbols chosen for stamps have always served as a form of national self- presentation, an expression of the aims and ambitions of the ruling authorities. Drawing on fiction and eye- witness accounts as well as historical sources, Bjorn Berge’s witty text casts an unconventional eye on these lesser- known nations. Nowherelands is a different kind of history book that will intrigue anyone keen to understand what makes a nation a nation.
Reviews:
This is a fascinating book written by an architect…Bjorn Berge’s witty text casts an unconventional eye on these lesser-known nations.
— North Carolina Modernist Houses
Unique and very special, Nowherelands: An Atlas of Vanished Countries 1840-1975 is a different kind of history book that will have an immense appeal for history buffs, postage stamp collectors, and political science students. Exceptionally well researched, written, organized and presented, Nowherelands is certain to be [an] extraordinary, unusual, and popular addition to both community and academic library World History collections and supplemental studies reading lists.
— Midwest Book Review
The author draws upon fiction and eyewitness accounts plus historical sources, filling out the narratives contained in each stamp and giving readers a view into decades of colonialism, nationalism, rebellion, imperialism and conflicts large and small… Nowherelands demonstrates with authority that even these tiny scraps of ephemera are interwoven with vital clues to culture and history along with their design.
— Print Magazine
Quote: "Frenchlover"5) île Sainte-Marie, nowadays Nosy Boraha, off the coast of Madagascar (Fred37, France)
You are skilled in history and geography.
Normal, you’re a coin collector.
... one fact: all of them endured long enough to issue their own coins, banknotes or stamps....
Greetings!
Please tell me where can I see the coin of this island?
There are photos? I have some doubts ..
I am collecting islands of the world: coins, tokens, medals, etc exonumia&unusual
My nominee for the most obscure former stamp-issuing country. The article indicates that stamps of Portuguese India were overprinted "Liberated Areas" for use in Free Dadra and Nagar Haveli. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Dadra_and_Nagar_Haveli
