Annus Novus

Annus Novus,

... and again we've got ourselves a brand New Year, 2010 years from the legendary beginning of the Christian era. I hope this new 2010 will see more peace and tranquility than the last one. We are visiting Colorado Springs, and yesterday we hiked a bit in the Garden of Gods, an ancient Ute Indians winter camping ground converted into a park, c'est la vie. Perhaps tomorrow we will ride horses at the Air Force Academy – eh, sweet vacation. Colorado is beautiful, Pikes Peak snow-white, while bison and mule deer burgers are very tasty, thus I must conclude that nothing beats the Western US – with the exception of the Brooklyn Public Library and one very helpful librarian- many thanks Ms.Isabela :) .

Meantime I did some sketching over the Christmas vacation and one these 'playthings' can be seen here – this is a copy of a horse head from the Achaemenid site at Persepolis. I converted it a bit to make it more 'colorful' if you will. The bulging forehead and ram nose is the peculiar trait of this ancient Median horse. Raised on lucerne and fabulous grasses of Media these horses rode into history ... with Herodotus, Xenophont and others :).

This new year has very, very promising outlook– ancient China horses and chevaliers, more Eurasian nomads, more noble Polish-Lithuanian riders and their steeds, finally some Medieval themes etc. Time will show …