Anthony Bourdain II

A couple other great episodes:

Hong Kong. What a great view into this world. Lost in Translation with actual conversations. The best noodles in the city are made in an apartment high in a building in the bad side of town. He is the only master left in the city from the ancient Chinese art of noodles. This is one of the most magical moments ever captured.

Pacific Northwest. Interesting look at Oregon young cooking culture.

Romeo y Julieta

It was a while back when the Romeo and Juliet made at La Romana in the Dominican Republic were something to hope for. Over time, the brand lost its kick  and the mastership of its Churchill's wrapping. Over its lifetime, the brand was known for producing over 1,000 personalized cigar bands. High quality Romeo and Juliet habanos brand to order.

But something happened. They became popular. The pressure to be in the stands carried back in the supply chain all the way to its seed, and something was lost. It is not a coincidence that the original family was also loosing its grip on the product over 4 decades in exile.
 
The resemblance to its origins was brought back on the "Centenario" issue (one hundred year celebration), and it did allured to the glorious past.

But that was it. The world changes. The Romeo and Juliet Churchill's don't contain the same leaves of past decades. They are not what they were...until I crossed paths with the habanos from the original soil. The same soil that in its desperation becomes eternal.

The Cuban Romeo and Juliet hasn't changed. It fires up like a turbo engine banishing its band becoming what it was before it was named. Its history ends and begins on its smoke. There is no time before perfection, and there is no telling of its future.

I walked by the original Romeo and Juliet factories on a daily basis. A long time ago, the building was meant to stand outside the city walls, outside the protection of the gates to be closer to its soil. But the city grew in her own selfishness making the tabacco factories an arcaic symbol of past times. The fragance emanating from the leaves cut and squeezed by the tabacco rollers slowly covered the neighborhood easily leading blind men back to their home after a night of drinking.

The Romeo and Juliet from the original soil remains. The glorious Churchill under a Shakespearean name still grows outside the gates.

Le Scriba

Accounting is an ancient trade. In the time of Pharaohs, sculptures were only reserved for the Pharaohs and major civil and religious figures. Ancient Egypt is built on the question of eternity. The building of monuments spanned decades to assure the immortality of the present ruler. "Human Gods" took their gold and their servants with them in the journey to the afterlife. And all the sudden, the scribe is made eternal in color sculptures in noble poses.

The Scribe kept the records on the building of pyramids and temples. They supervised the construction of monuments. It was a trade passed from father to son for generations. They were so revered that at times, they were exempt from taxes. The eternal quest for immortality starts to wane, and a trade starts to assume its righteous place among the immortals not because of its need for eternity but for its importance to make this life, eternal.

Scriba

El Cemí

The Tainos were one of the most advanced Aborigines of the Caribbean.

They were the first ones to encounter Christopher Columbus. Christopher Columbus having been a merchant made a catalogue of species, food, and plants from his first encounters. He listed tobacco; however, he listed it as the only item without economical value. Over the centuries, tobacco spread throughout the world like no other good.

In the US, there seems to be an association between tobacco and power given the wealth of plantations in the South which has been forever inscribed in modern culture through movies, but tobacco is more than that.

The Taino Indians used tobacco to speak to their spirits in ceremony. They smoked tobacco through their noses with a hollow trunk with two endings in one side. European smoked in pipes and bought tobacco from Virginia and Cuba's plantation using shredded leaves of the tobacco plant. Native Americans used the peace pipe and believed the smoke carried their prayers to Heaven. Moroccan caravans spread it across Africa and across desert cultures. Then colonial powers brought it to every single point in the globe.

But at some moment in history, the habano was born as the modern cigar. Why was this shape introduced when tobacco use was already widespread across the World.

Habano is the original name of the cigar given the first major tobacco factories were in Habana (Havana). There is no evidence of a link between the modern habano (cigar) and the Tainos Aborigines. However, one must wonder about the shape of this archaeological artifact found. It is called the Cemí. It is one of the oldest archaeological findings in Cuba, and it is very possible that there is a connection between certain tobacco tradition of the Tainos and the birth of the habano.

The oldest of these icons had been carved in a stalagmite and had a height just below 1 meter in one of the highest mountains in East Cuba which was the stronghold of Taino culture. This one was made out of wood. It represents a deity of the land (El idolo de la Tierra). This idol is called nowadays a deity of the tobacco plant.

El Cemí



Spaniards never got a hold of this area. Taino rebellions lasted years in this mountain, and in these caves, the Cemí dwelt among dried tobacco leaves and the smoke of the elders in wood carvings, stalagmites, and stones.

View from La Gran Piedra Mountain

The Threat of the German Tank

WWII German Tiger Tank

The Allies invasion of Europe was not by any means a decision taken lightly. They had to be sure that victory was attainable or the war might have been lost for sure.

The Soviet Union seemed to achieve victory no matter the cost. There were plenty of underground painters releasing satire portraying Stalin's hand pushing masses of Russians to stop the German tanks with their bodies. The German tanks were better, stronger, and had more reach. The invasion of Western Europe was a high risk operation. There was a race for tank design and process because at some moment Soviet tanks could not even penetrate the armor of the NAZI Tiger tank.

One of the highest risk of the Allies' invasion was the German tank. If the Germans created a new tank or the German tank production was a lot higher than predicted, the allies could have suffered a terrible defeat. Looking at WWII footage, the panthers divisions were fierce, highly trained, and highly technical. Every time a German tank was encountered was a risk to the whole mission, and it produced a serious engagement that derailed plans on a daily basis. By the time US troops placed the hidden German tank, a serious blow had been taken.

One of the most important tasks for the successful invasion of Europe was to figure out the NAZI tank production. An engineer had the idea that given Germans were so methodical, they would probably number their tanks in the order they were produced. Using this assumption and constantly comparing the numbers to captured German tanks in the battlefield, the allies forecasted Germany's tank production to be 256 tanks a month. Given the magnitude of the German battle front, the allies concluded this number was too low to put the invasion in jeopardy by itself.

When US troops took over the German tank factories, records showed a production level of 255 tanks a month. A simple insightful knowledge of the German culture allowed the Allies to see in the dark and accurately forecast the enemy's strength.

Pyotr the Great

Pyotr Romanov

When combating the Swedes, the Russian Tzar Pyotr happened to be one of the only two people in his country who knew how to navigate the sea. He commanded one of his ships, and captured two battleships from the Swedes. When in history have you ever seen that?

Peter the Great was a fierce and terrible ruler, but at the same time, it is probably the only monarch that actually taught other people. When he took power over Russia in his late teens, he put someone else in power, disguised himself as a carpenter, and left Russia to learn from other Western powers. He stayed in humble homes while obtaining certificates of bombardier (artillery service man), mason, knitting, map making, learned how to draw teeth, conduct autopsies, and many others trades.

Pyotr Romanov, the Russian Tzar, worked in the shipyard of the Dutch East Indian Company as a laborer. He learned how to build ships, locks, fortresses, navigate, and naval warfare. When the ship was built, he end up going to the Island of Java in Indonesia as seaman. Disappointed by the lack of advance geometry in Holland, he continued his journey to England where he met none less than Isaac Newton.

When he returned to Russia, he built the city of San Petersburg against all odds making it one of the most beautiful and best built cities in Europe. He completely remodelled Russian culture introducing items as simple as napkins, shaving, raised sidewalks, and fire hoses. He also conquered and expanded Russia into an empire taking land from the once all powerful Swedes in the North and Turkish and Ottoman Empire that constantly raided his country from the South enslaving thousands of Russians. (Given the Russ were nomads, they didn't tend to have slaves. Less mouths to feed.)

There were plenty of failures on his accounts. He was constantly humiliated by other European monarchs because of his Russian manners, and he wasn't able to forge alliances against his enemies. A wise European King said about him: he will either be dead or do extraordinary things. His first war with the Swedes ended so bad for him, he had to order the confiscation of church bells to forge new cannons. Even though he was a monarch, this earned him the respect of the later Communist Soviets because he was sacrificing items of religion for achievable victory without superstitions. Like Russian historians like to say: he knew what belonged to God and what belonged to Caesar.

In contrast to other monarchs that would have needed a second delegation to ship back their luggage and gifts after months travelling, on this return to Russia, Peter the Great shipped only two suitcases containing only technical instruments and scientific drawings and manuals.

When has it ever been another monarch who learned everything from the manual labors, sophisticated trades, science, and warfare. He led his country by introducing and teaching them everything from the simple to the most sophisticated in order to rival any Western nation of the times. This portrait is said to be the most accurate painting of the young Peter the Great, and it was painted around the time of this journey in England.

Alexander Nevsky

The history of the world is like the history of chess. The history of chess is written by the dominant player. At some moment, one player rises through the ranks given a certain ability, strategy, or philosophy. He dominates and then history is made. In 1886, the positional strategy gave rise to a clear world champion. This strategy dominated until another ground breaking approach dominates every other player.

In War, it is the weapon. World War I was the constant fight for air superiority. First, the planes were used for intelligence gathering to learn about enemy movement. The opposite side would create planes to shut down the spy planes. Then there was the race to create planes that could dog fight and protect the spy planes, and so on. World War II was the race for a machine gun with more range, the tank, the supply chain, etc.

The stealth fighter and the M1 Abrams Tank have been dominant for the last few decades, but back in the 1200s, the ultimate weapon was the mounted Knight. The mid evo Knight was protected by thick armor and a trained strong horse that gave him mobility in spite of its weight. They were armed with long lances and they attacked in close rank with speed, reach, and force. Another strength was their sense of army and brotherhood having swore to their Christian God to protect their fellow knight and to serve unconditionally to protect the weak. The Hospitallers or the Knights of Malta were founded to protect pilgrims on their journey to Jerusalem. Most entered the order by given away their fortunes which gave them a lifelong servitude to the order.

The Knight orders dominated the Middle Ages. The Templars were the first force to entered Jerusalem in the first Crusade.

Around this time, a tribe called the Russ had settled and found unification around a city named Kiev in the Ukraine. They had suffered the Mongol invasion and the Swedes with their Viking heritage.

The Teutonic Knights were a German army of knights well known for their power. In 1242, they were all powerful across Europe. Led by the Master of the Order itself, they incursed into Russ territory. And a young prince named Alexander Nevsky who had been exiled is asked to return and lead the defense of what later would be called Mother Russia.

They met on the ice of Lake Peipus. The Teutonic army, with legions to the Pope and against pagans, had around 30,000 men compared to an army of around 40,000 made out of Russ and Polish. But the Knights were feared. Nothing stood in their path like a Buffalo stampede. They were highly educated, trained, and experienced in a life of warfare.

Teutonic Knights

On this lake, the Mid Evo Knight was defeated for first time in history. A new strategy had been discovered. Foot soldier protected by light armor and fur under the spell of a wise young Kievian Prince returning from exile became brave enough to attack the knights proving that surrounding the Knights was the next dominant move for the next few centuries.

Modern accounts understate the victory of the Russ tribe. They mention it wasn't a great defeat, and the knights were not defeated out of strategy, but they were outnumbered. In its context, the annihilation of the Teutonic Knights spread like fire village to village, town to town, castle to castle. The Knights of the Teutonic Order had been destroyed by Alexander Nevsky the prince from the Russ tribe in the far East. Historically, it wasn't the first time Knights were outnumbered. There are accounts of a hand full of knights putting down riots and battling armies. On that day, something more abstract than a simple battle had taken place. The Middle Ages Knight ended to be the ultimate weapon and over time a higher number of foot soldier took their place in the battlefield.



А л е к с а ́ н д р

A L e k s a  n d  r

Н е ́в с к и й

N e b s K e y i a​

 Centuries later, Napoleon was constantly outnumbered, but he would only use raiders for side assaults under his best generals with highly trained horsemen. Among other ground breaking strategies, the core of Napoleon's army and their most veterans units were always on foot dominating all Europe.