Posts Tagged ‘today’

Trip to Dragalevski manastir (Dragalevci) and Bay Krystio Hut in National Park Vitosha Sofia Bulgaria

Saturday, May 28th, 2016
Vitosha-Dragalevtzi-Holy-Monastery

The spring and summer season in capital of Bulgaria Sofia gives unique possibilities for rest of the ordinary busy IT person like me because Sofia is situated in the ridge of Vitosha Mountain. Actually mountain tourism is really a great way to reduce pressure and clean up our heads of the overbusy daily office life consisting of non stop solving complex management, programming and other system administration tasks.

Dragalevci-Pyteka

Besides being a great place for lovers of Nature Sofia and nearby places gives a lot of entertainment mountain huts (the popular Hijas, delta planers, ski lifting, horse riding,  crystal clear air and mountain springs and perhaps the best a unique virgin nature situated just a 20 minutes with bus from the center of 1.5 million people.  One common route in Sofia for residents and also for tourist who come for a visit to Sofia is actually Dragalevci (a Sofia village like Suburb) and the route leading to the ancient and famous monastery of Dragalevci which is in honour of The Holy  Theotkos (Virgin Mary) Vitoshka.

Dragalevski-Manastir-entrance-icon-Holy-Virgin-Mary

From there there is ecological mountain footpath leading to a place called Bai Krystio who was a famous mountain tourist who helped a lot during 20 century for developing of mountain tourism in Bulgaria and Dragalevci and build a Hija (a mountain hut) which today is currently named in his honour.
Dragalevski-Manastitosha-Sofia-stenopis

For the lazy ones after 14:00 you can also go their with a car there is an asphaltous way leading to the Mountain Hut, even though it is much preferrable to go their walking the steep wild road going through the wood surrounded by beautiful springing waters. A walk in Dragalevci to the Hut could be successfully made for less than 2 hours with a small 5 minutes breaks the pathway leading to it is long and as a lot of tourists go their regularly there is no chance for you to lost yourself.  From Dragalevci there are a lift-station  chairs called "Goli Vryh" translationg as "Naked peak". Right the Dragalevci station their is a "plazza" which leads to the very famous near Sofia rest place called "Hija Aleko  / Hut Aleko".

Landscape-view-of-Hija-Aleko-Vitosha-Sofia-national-park

Walking through the wood once reaching the asphals, there is a sign showing the way  to Aleko hut (which is named after the famous Bulgarian author and publicist Aleko Konstantinov). Our trip started from Paradise Mall and to reach their we catched a bus number 93 the bus ticket is just like an ordinary city ticket and costs only 1 leva, the bus we travelled with was a bit archaic some old medel Mercedes but in my opinion there is also a charm in these too.
 

Going to Dragalevski monastery has 2 ways either the asphalt one or the wood footpath so we me (Billiana, Ilia and Svetlana) choose the footpath from which you see and hear the relaxing voice of Dragalevska river which is parallel the walk path. Dragalevski-manastery-monk-cells-Vitosha-mountain-Sofia
      Dragalevtzi view to the nuns cells and cemetery
 
Dragalevski Nun Monastery is a very peaceful and beatiful place  behind the beautiful church is the cemetery where about 7 nuns are peacefully laying waiting for the resurrection of the Dead that is to come in the Judgment day when the Lord Jesus Christ commands all the dead to Resurrect for judgement.

Dragalevski-manastir-Vitosha-Sofia-Bulgaria-alter-and-cemetery

 

 

Dragalevci Eastern Orthodox Church Holy Alters (actually belonging to 2 Churches the old and the new one)
Dragalevski-Monastery-Bells-Vitosha-Mountain

Dragalevtzi Monastery Bells Going through a stone stairs you reach a spring water (Holy Spring / Aiazmo) and a monastery wood pavillion where you can sit to have a picnic or have a peaceful rest looking through the beautiful garden downway.
Dragalevski-manastir-holy-spring

Holy Spring in Dragalevtci Monastery Virgin Mary (Vitoshka) Dragalevski-manastery-monk-cells-Vitosha-mountain-Sofia
Nuns livings cells

If you continue uplifting the mountain footpath after about 30 – 40 minutes you reach the mountain-lifts in the region of Bai Krystio and you see a lot of people lifting down the mountain, a great way to travel back if you're too tired from the walk.

Dragalevski-lift Sofia Vitosha mountain tourism

In the Bai Krystio hut you'll find a kind of mixture of a mountain restaurant and caffeteria where you can have a great lunch / dinner of meatballs with french fries / kachamak / bob a cabbage salat with carrots, shopska salata with beer or hot tea. We had the chance to have a quick interaction with the selling old granny and the helper kitchen lady which was too kind calling everyone my child and having the mothers like behaviour. The hygene and the overall atmosphere of the  Hija was okay though don't expect a 5 stars restaurant. Also it is notable that everyone we saw on the wood path leading to the Hija was greeting us so the atmosphere was much warmer than the cold and lonely cities we live in nowdays. If you continue from Bai krystio you can reach the marked pathway leading to Goli Vryh and from their you will reach to Aleko Hut, Cherni Vryh (Black Peak) or Momina Skala (The Maiden Rock).

Kraj_Momina_skala-view-to-mountain

We enjoyed a lot and I'm thankful to God for the great day we had today, if you happen to live in Sofia and looking for enjoyment for the weekend or you are on a holiday i recommend you go Dragelvtzi you'll not regret it.

Axion Estin – It is Truly Meet feast in Bulgarian Orthodox Church

Thursday, June 11th, 2015

Today is a glorious feast in Eastern Orthodox Churches (especially in Slavonic ones) because on this day an ArchAngel Gabiel on Holy Mount Athos in year 773  handed an Angel song in praise of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary), Mother of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

 

Dostojno_est_It-is-truly-meet-orthodox_icon
 

Liturgical use

The hymn is chanted at Matins, Compline, and other services; but its most important occurrence is at the Divine Liturgy, where it is chanted at the conclusion of the Anaphora. The second half of the hymn, "More honorable…" is frequently chanted before the dismissal which concludes services.

Often, the chanting of this hymn is followed by either a metania or a prostration.

It is truly meet In Church Slavonic

Досто́йно ’е́сть ’я́ко вои́стину блажи́ти Тѧ֨, Богоро́дицу,
Присноблаже́нную ’и Пренепоро́чную ’и Ма́терь Бо́га на́шего.
Честне́йшую херуви́мъ ’и сла́внейшую безˈ сравне́ния серафи́мъ, безי ᾿истле́ния Бо́га Сло́ва ро́ждшую,
су́щую Богоро́дицу, Тя֙ велича́емъ.

 


It is Truly Meet in Bulgarian / Достойно есть

 

Достойно е, наистина, да Те облажаваме, Богородице,
винаги блажена и пренепорочна и Майка на нашия Бог.

По-чтима от херувимите и несравнено по-славна от серафимите,
нетленно родила Бог Слово, същинска Богородица, Те величаем.

 

Holy_Mother-of-God-Theotokos-All-the-world-rejoice-in-you

All the World rejoices in You Holy Icon

Axion Estin (Greek) – It is truly meet

It is truly right to bless thee, O Theotokos,
thou the ever blessed, and most pure, and the Mother of our God.
Thou the more honorable than the cherubim,
and beyond compare more glorious than the seraphim,
who without corruption gavest birth to God the Word,
thou the true Theotokos, we magnify thee.

40 Days since our beloved brother in Christ (ipodeacon Georgi Nedev) has presented himself in God

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

Holy Mount Athos st. Georgi the Glory Bringer - Zographus Monastic main Church
Holy Mount Athos st. Georgi the Glory Bringer – Zographus Monastic main Church

I start this post with the St. George Zographus Monastery’s main Church as the Zographus Monastery on Holy Mount Athos was our brother Georgi last eartly place he wanted to spend the remaining of his eartly life.

Today it’s the 40th day since our brother in Christ (ipodeacon) Georgi Nedev has presented his humble soul to our Saviour Jesus.

ipodeacon Georgi Nedev on a Bishop Church service holding the metropolitan sceptre

This is the only picture I have of our brother Georgi

His living was as humble as his departure from this life and his passing I believe in the eternal life with God.
Georgi had the severe desire to become a monk in Holy Mount Athos and has multiple friends in there which loved him and often prayed for him.
Now on this 40 day in our Bulgarian monastery in Holy Mount Athos, Saint George – The GloryBringer (Zographus) monks will be serving a requiem service (Panihida – as we say in Slavonic)

His departure was striking and sudden for of us in the Church community here in Dobrich’s Holy Trinity Church, as well as not less shocking for the Holy Mount Athos Zographus monks Christian community who loved our brother sincerely.

Some short biographic facts about our brother ipodeacon Georgi Nedev are here
Unfortunately the bio-facts I know about Georgi are very little, as I only knew him for a couple of years. Even though the short time I used to know him, I can say I was blessed through him and I’m exteremely grateful to him, it was through him I’ve learned a bit more about Holy Mount Athos and our Bulgarian monk community that is in Zographus, as well as some very minor details concerning the spiritual Church life that I’ve never thought about.
It was thanks to him I was being encouraged on numerous times in terrible times of desparation and loss of faith and track in life.

Thanks to him I was being explained for a first time, how one can go for a pilgrimage journey to Holy Mount Athos and how one can get the pilgrim’s permit documentation related to going there called in greek diamontirium
He also told me about numerous miracles about Holy Mount Athos, and explained me one needs to pray to the Holy Theotokos Virgin Mary and ask her that is being allowed to enter this holy place.

This last lent, even though his sickness Georgi was regularly visiting the evening services in the Church and was dilegent in his spiritual life.

I remember him expressing his enormous joy the last time I saw him on a Holy Liturgy for he took the Holy Communion.
After the Church service, I asked him how is he, his answer was; I’m not feeling well, but praise be to God! for I was able to take the Holy Communion

Many times when I asked him what are his future plans, he used to answer I don’t know anything, it’s all in the God’s will (hands) for me.

You can see yourself how great his dedicated for God was by his own words.

As our priest, who used to be his confessor said, “Georgi was a righteous man and God took him early on”.

Let eternal be your Memory beloved brother Georgi now and Forver and Ever! Amen!

Useful BSD tips

Saturday, January 26th, 2008

I have collected a bunch of useful bsd tips stored into files they can be seen here bsd_tips Also something very precious as tips is the wiki of gongoputch (a kewl guy hanging around on irc.freenode.net ##freebsd). Here is the Wiki too bsdtips . Now about my day a normal day like everyday more or less :). I have fasted and prayed for 3 days only on water I feel really good now. I have to fast again soon. Weakening the flesh definetely enpowers The Spirit! :).I was very nicely surpriced today when I went to the Stephanie’s office (Our teacher from Holland) and find out that I have passed the HRQM exam with 4.5 ! As usually I prayed before the exam trusting on the Lord’s guidance and help and he led me and helped me! Blessed be the God of Israel 🙂 For his mercies to me (like to everybody on earth 🙂 are countless. Today I found Classic.Games.Collection.1982-1987 and I intend to walk through the games and have some fun :). END—–

Linux: List last 10 (newest) and 10 oldest modified files in a directory with ls

Tuesday, April 8th, 2014

An useful thing on GNU / Linux sometimes is to list last or oldest modified files in directory.

Lets say you want to list last 10 modified files with ls from today / yesterday. Here is how:
 

ls -1t | head -10
my.cnf
wordperss_enabled_plugins.txt
newcerts/
mysql-hipo_pcfreakbiz.dump
NewArchive-Jan-10-15.zip
hipo_pcfreakbiz-mysqldb-any-out-1389361234.tgz
Tisho_Snimki/
wordpress/
wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron=1.1
wp-cron.php

 

To list 10 oldest modified files on Linux:

 

ls -1t | tail -10
    my.cnf
    pcfreak_sql-15_10_05_2012
    mysql-tuning-primer*
    tuning-primer.sh*
    system-administration-services.html
    blog_backup_15_07_2012.tar.gz
    www-files/
    dump.sql
    courier-imap*
    djbdns-1.05.tar.gz


Cheers 😉

Origin of Halloween (All Hallows Eve) or the Day of All Saints is actually Christian

Thursday, October 30th, 2014

 

 

The-Christian_Original-of-Halloween-Cross_on-a-pumpkin

 

 

Many people would "celebrate" Halloween today, however many don't know or understand the true feast origin. It would probably news to many that halloween that is today so much associated with satanism, evil spirits and horror has christian origin! Here is what wikipedia States about Halloween quote:
 

The word Halloween or Hallowe'en dates to about 1745 and is of Christian origin. The word "Halloween" means "hallowed evening" or "holy evening". It comes from a Scottish term for All Hallows' Eve (the evening before All Hallows' Day). In Scots, the word "eve" is even, and this is contracted to e'en or een. Over time, (All) Hallow(s) Eve(n) evolved into Halloween. Although the phrase "All Hallows'" is found in Old English (ealra hālgena mæssedæg, all saints mass-day), "All Hallows' Eve" is itself not seen until 1556.

 

All-Saints-day-Latin-Roman-Catholic-icon

Before Christianization of Western societies – e.g. Irish, Old English, Scots and the other Gaelic nations, in Ancient celtic traditions Samhain (celebrated at end of October) give the beginning of the Celtic New Year. Celts believed that the spirits of the dead over the previous year come to roam the world looking for living people to possess. As a mean of protect Celts put on their face animal skin and other objects in order to be as scare as possible to drive out spirits from themselves. The Celtic people of Europe and Britain were pagan Druids (priests / educated people) whose major celebrations were marked by the seasons. At the end of the year in northern Europe, people made preparations to ensure winter survival by harvesting the crops and culling the herds, slaughtering animals that wouldn't make it. Life slowed down as winter brought darkness (shortened days and longer nights), fallow ground, and death. The imagery of death, symbolized by skeletons, skulls, and the color black, remains prominent in today's Halloween celebrations.

seasonal_activities_medieval_seasons_calendar

The "Samhain" season used to be a favourite times before Christianization and (even by some witches, later haunted by Inquisition) for occult practices such as divination and communication with the dead. They sought "divine" spirits (demons) and the spirits of their ancestors regarding weather forecasts for the coming year, crop expectations, and even romantic prospects. Bobbing for apples was one practice the pagans used to divine the spiritual world's "blessings" on a couple's romance.

Interetingly in Eastern Europe countries, there is similar traditions in multiple countries – e.g. Romania, Moldova Serbia, Greece, Macedonia, Croatia even in my own Bulgarian culture we still have regions celebrating similar pagan feast, on whose feast KukeriKukers are called the dressed people in the form and masked as scary beasts with horns dance on the streets in hope to drive away with their awful looking outlook any "evil spirits". Kukeri traditionally appear still in Eastern Bulgaria, the feast has been known to have origin from Thracians.

kukeri in Bulgaria Shiroka Lyka

It is intriguing that since, even very ancient times people believed in immortality of the human spirit and this is not coincidence, because from ancient times people know "instinctively" the soul is importal and life continues on after physical dead of the body.

The modern version of Halloween celebrated mainly by kids wandering the homes of neighbors with the question "Trick or Treat?" started being marked in that way in England, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Italy at least as early as 15th century.
Traditionally groups of poor children would go to homes collecting the so called soul-cakes (special burned small breads) made as an aim of remembrance of the Christian relatives who passed away – it was a very widespread custom to give food to strangers as a mean of charity  just like it is still in Orthodox Christian countries, we give away food to strangers as an aim to remembrance of our departed (and forgiveness of sins) to our relatives.

Halloween-christian-tradition-soul-cake-with-Cross-on-it

In the Middle Ages, churches displayed the holy relics of martyred saints for veneration and those parishes that were too poor to have relics let parishioners dress up as the saints instead a practice that some Christians continue in Halloween celebrations today.

Cross_and_Halloween_origin-of-feast

Unfortunately the Christian root of Halloween tradition gradually mixed with some of the old still not completely forgotten beliefs of paganism in pre-christian times and with the gradual raise of materialism, the protestant reformation, the enlightenment, the french revolution, the world wars etc. this mostly Christian traditions loose their Christian ground and left mostly its pagan element.
After Christianization of Europe from the 9th century onwards the Church, pagan traditions continued to be practiced by many, probably because the Church "mass" language and preaching was in Latin, people doesn't have bibles and many even baptized doesn't really had a good knowledge / understanding on Christian faith.
It is not a coincidence the Church's decision to place the All Hallows Eve (The Day of All Saints) on "Halloween" feast on 1  November.

Pope_Gregory_III-icon-Catholic-Pope-who-fighted-iconoclasm-heresy

The feast of All Saints on its current date, is traced to the foundation by Pope Gregory III (731–741) – (who was a defender of true Orthodox Christian faith  and openly against the heresy of Iconoclasm) who set this date to be  "of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors, of all the just made perfect who are at rest throughout the world", the feast was moved to 1 November from the prior feast from 13 May suppressed.

With the emigration of many Europeans to America the secular Halloween feast has been transferred to America and set itself as one of the United States citizens tradition in which reminded emigrants for their homeland europe making the feast popularity to boast. The bloom of TV advertisement and the decrease of faith in people, increase of occult mindset in society made the feast primordial understanding to invert associating Halloween with evil which is fun in the mass. This is quite strange as evin the ancient pagans, had not associated with evil but used the feast as a mean to protect from evil. That's another sign in what kind of tragic state currently society is … sadly the feast Americanization made it to the number of "International feasts". And now there is almost no country where Halloween is not celebrated in a secular way.

It is not a hidden fact that Halloween feast for its connection with magical powers, paganism and occult is often believed and said to be 'A feast day for Witches and magicians', its considered important feast in Anton Sandor Lavey's Church of Satan.

A lot of parents nowdays does encourage their children to celebrate the feast not understanding the real Christian roots of it and teaching children to enjoy evil often without even realizing the psychological damage this makes to a kid.
Some countries such as Russia has already legislation prohibiting the pupils in school to mask like monsters and celebrate publicly the feast.
roman_catholic_christian_halloween_pumpkin
If you're a parent it is always a good idea to tell your kid that the truth is Halloween feast is not connected to darkness as it is often publicly illustrated but on the contrary Halloween tradition is early Christian one.

festival “Linux: can’t open /dev/dsp” error fix

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

I tried using festival today just to realize it doesn’t work anymore.
For instance # echo test |festival -tts would fail with the annoying
“Linux: can’t open /dev/dsp”  error message. I found the solution in ubuntuforums,
the solution is originally taken from “the Gentoo Speechd Howto“.
The solution is to create .festivalrc in your home as well as to the homes of all usersintending to use festival.
Here is how:

printf ";use ALSAn(Parameter.set 'Audio_Method 'Audio_Command)n(Parameter.set 'Audio_Command "aplay -q -c 1 -t raw -f s16 -r $SR $FILE")n" > .festivalrc

Evening service and Holy Liturgy in Russian Church st. Nicolas and marriage preparations

Wednesday, February 5th, 2014

St-nicolas-russian-church-sofia-bulgaria

Last Saturday evening I and my future wife Svetlana went to get train tickets (Sofia Dobrich), cause next week me and Svetlana will be travelling to Dobrich. Afterwards we went to Russian Church in center of Sofia – St. Nicolas for the evening service and confessed. The evening service was led by Archimandrite Philip who is currently Russian Church's prior.

archimandrite-Philip-russian-church-in-Bulgaria-prior

At the end of Church service there was an oilment, as always being on a Russian Holy Liturgy is astonishing experience. On Sunday morning 2nd February we were in Russian Church again for the Russian Liturgy and we took the holy sacraments as it is proper (according to Orthodox Church tradition the marrying couple should confess and receive the sacraments before marrying in Church). After Church service we went to Church crypt to venerate holy relics of Archimandrate Seraphim Sobolev. A big thing is happening in my life nowdays as I will have marriage this week  on Friday 7-th of February:)

We prepared so far almost everything for marriage. My parents helped with finding a marriage resturant and finding musicians for post marriage restaurant celebration. We also travelled to Asenovgrad to look for Svetlana's  wedding dress and we got one  I bough a marriage suit 2 weeks back and we ordered a marriage rings. There is already agreement with a priest father Vasilij – who will merry us in Church St. Trinity this Friday. Father Vasilij serves in Church "Dormition of Virgin Mary" in Kavarna . We choose father Vasilij to make the Marriage vows for the reason he is nativily Russian speaking (like Svetlana) plus the father is a good example of a true Christian priest. Today the parents of Svetlana (mama Vera and papa Alexander) arrived in the airport in Varna for the marriage (thanks God they had safe flight). Sunday night I send Svetlana to Train Station here in Sofia to make latest preparations for marriage. I will be travelling to Dobrich on Wednesday night 1 day before marriage. The rest of things happening around are not so interesting. In y job in HP work is complicated as usual. On my job I'm learning HPSM (HP Service Manager) and how to open new Changes in system and that's mostly my life these days. When I have time I'm playing OpenTyrian and a couple of nice arcade games on my ZTE Android mobile phone and reading some saint livings on mobile.
 

 

Merry Christmas from Pomorie Monastery and a small monastic fire that ended well

Thursday, December 26th, 2013

chestito-rojdestvo-hristovo-merry-Christmas-a-monastery-fire-stopped-by-Gods-grace

I spend the Christmas eve for a first time in Monastery with the brotherhood in Pomorie monastery. The night on 24-th against 25-th when Christmas is celebrated in Bulgaria was marked by the usual morning service and a Holy Liturgy. Silent Night Holy Night song was sung in the Church near the end of the Holy Liturgy.

All went well except small fire incident, out of a suddenr right after the end of the Church service a fire ignited  in one of the monastery store rooms. Actually it was a huge miracle that the fire didn't spread in whole monastic cell buildings as the fire used to be active without anyone noticing it for about 6 hours or so. The restult of fire was that  just one room full of sheets and sanitary equipment burn out completely. The fire happened in a room nearby my room on second stage one stage lower (on first floor). The fire brigade come quickly and stashed the fireplace without serious troubles.

The fire would have quickly spread if in the burning room if only one of the water tubes didn't break up pouring water inside on the burning stuff. The fire emerged around 12:40 and was already еxtinguished for less than hour. Thanks God there was no one in the burning room and no victims  Another sure miracle is that today weather is very calm no wind blowing so fire didn't ignited in a quick pace and was easily extinguished.  

Below are the immersly beautiful Christmas Church Troparion, Kontaktion and Feast singings as translated to English

Thy nativity, O Christ our God,
has shown to the world the light of wisdom;
for by it, those who worshipped the stars
were taught by a star to adore Thee
the Sun of Righteousness,
and to know Thee, the Orient from on high.
O Lord, glory to Thee."

Today the virgin, gives birth to the incomprehensible One;
and the earth offers a cave to the unapproachable One;
Angels and shepherds glorify Him;
the Wisemen journey with a star;
since for our sakes is born the ETERNAL GOD, as a little Child.

Christ is born, glorify him.
Christ is from heaven, go to meet him.
Christ is an earth, be ye lifted up.
Sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing out with gladness, all ye people.
For he is glorified.

To the Son begotten of the Father
without change before the ages,
and in these last times without seed made flesh from a Virgin,
to Christ God let us cry aloud:
Thou hast exalted our horn. Holy are Thou, O Lord!'

Rod of the root of Jesse,  and flower that blossomed from his stem, O Christ,
Thou hast sprung from the Virgin.
From the Mountain overshadowed by the forest
Thou hast come, made flesh from her that knew not wedlock,
O God who art not formed from matter.
Glory to Thy power, O Lord.

As Thou art God of peace and Father of mercies,
Thou hast sent us Thy Angel of great counsel,
Who grants us peace;
so we are guided by the knowledge of God,
watching before dawn we glorify Thee, only Lover of mankind'.

The monster from the deep
spat Jonas from its bowels like a new born babe,
just as it had received him;
while the Word having dwelt in the Virgin and taken flesh,
came forth, yet kept her incorrupt,
for being himself not subject to decay,
he preserved his mother free from harm'.

The Youths brought up together in godliness,
scorning the impious decree,
feared not the threat of fire,
but standing in the midst of the flame they sang:
God of our Fathers, blessed are Thou!

The furnace moist with dew was the image and the figure of a wonder past nature;
for it did not burn those it had received;
even as the fire of the Godhead
did not consume the Virgin's womb into which it has descended.
Therefore in praise let us sing:
Let all creation bless the Lord,
and highly exalt Him to all the ages.

Magnify, O my soul, the most glorious Theotokos,
more honourable and more glorious than the hosts on high.
'I behold a strange and wonderful mystery,
heaven is the Cave, the Cherubim thrown — Virgin,
the Manger the Place in which Christ lay,
the God whom nothing can contain. Whom we praise and magnify.

I wish to my dear readers have a great and blessed Christmas Holiday time, let Christ's love, peace and mercies are abundant in your hearts!

How road signs evolved / short history of roadsigns

Friday, June 29th, 2012

how the road signs evolved brief history of road signs Ancient Roman Road of Tall Aqibrin

As a person interested in history and antrophology. Just recently on my last trip to Romania as I travelled a very interesting question poped up in my mind – How it happened that RoadSigns we use on every street highway and practically everywhere on the road came to be. Interestingly now with the standartization of road signs often the most popular road signs are used as a basis for development on other popular prohibit or allowance signs, we read on airports public institutions, pubs and mostly everywhere.

So in short I did a short research on Road Sign History, just to find out once again that the ancients, were wiser than we think. The first road signs probably came to existence with the existence of humanity, however officially, there was no standartization of using signs to point on road locations travellers before it was introudced in the Roman Empire. In Rome a pillars on the roads were placed to point to major road arteries leading to Rome and various important empire city centers.

During the middle ages, milestones pillars were no longer used, but for practical reasons wooden markers placed across european cities instructed tradesman and travellers to major city important centers and were used to show a general road direction leading to nearby city.
The wooden signs practice had been in use until the first modern roadsigns erected  on a wide scale designed for riders of 'high' and ordinary bicycles in the late 1870 and 1880s. The modern road signs as we know it today however emerged as a result of the  first International Road Congress meeting that occured in Rome in 1908.
On the meeting a four standard pictures were selected to note the basic for road signs further development. The need for the meeting was the large increase of roads across european artery cities. The road signs developed on the meeting were bump, curve, intersection and railroad crossings. The invention and adoption of cars and the boom of the car producing industry quickened the need for international road sign standard. The intensive work on international road signs that took place between 1926 and 1949 eventually led to the development of the European road sign system as we know it. The signs were quicky spread to America and in 1960, the road signs become universal in America and almost everywhere all around the developed and developing world.

As of today 2012 it can be said road signs exist all around the civilized world.Though most of road signs are identical across all countries around the world today still some road symbols varies from country to country. I remember seeing some very unique road signs during my travelling through Serbia, 2 years ago.