Читать книгу Abandoned Places: 60 stories of places where time stopped - Richard Happer - Страница 14
ОглавлениеDATE ABANDONED: Twentieth century
TYPE OF PLACE: City
LOCATION: Bangladesh
REASON: Economic/Religious
INHABITANTS: Thousands at its peak
CURRENT STATUS: Gradual decay
A RICH TRADING CENTRE PRIZED BY HINDU, ISLAMIC, MUGHAL, AND BRITISH EMPIRES IS NOW SLOWLY BEING WASHED AWAY BY AN INDIFFERENT CLIMATE. SOME OF THE OLDEST BUILDINGS IN BANGLADESH ARE ALL BUT LOST AMID THE RAINS AND THE FLOURISHING JUNGLE.
The town of many empires
It is only 24 km (15 miles) from the hive-like hubbub of Bangladesh’s capital city, Dhaka, but Sonargaon feels like it exists on a different planet. It was a Hindu trading outpost by the thirteenth century and it later became an Islamic spiritual retreat. As seagoing international trade increased from the fourteenth century onwards, Sonargaon steadily grew in size and influence.
It boomed again under British colonial rule, with the establishment of the textile-producing neighbourhood of Panam City. Street after street of elegant Indo-European townhouses were built in the late 1800s to house a prosperous new population of upper-middle class Bengali businessmen.
Left behind in a new age
British rule officially ended in 1947, and the former empire was divided along religious lines: India (Hindu) and Pakistan (Muslim). As Sonargaon became part of East Pakistan, many of its Hindu residents fled across the border to India. Bangladesh was established as an independent country in 1971 at the end of a fierce civil war. By that time this once affluent town had been abandoned, with most of its remaining inhabitants having moved to the growing city of Dhaka.
Today the old town is recognized as being at risk and is officially protected. However, the damp climate, lack of maintenance and infestation with woodworm and other pests are all causing visible damage to the buildings. Spacious rooms ringed with elegant arches, where the floors were once covered in bolts of golden cloth, are now home only to puddles and damp stone. Carved stone balustrades writhe with vines and the once airy balconies are choked with young forest. Where roofs have tumbled in, the walls are often slick with running rainwater, which washes away a little more plaster here, a little more there.
Perhaps a new influx of tourists will bring in the money the town needs to preserve its architectural treasures, but it’s hard to imagine this happening. This is a land where mere survival can be difficult enough: 80 per cent of Bangladesh is flood plain and the country is prone to flooding from the annual monsoons and frequent cyclones. Change here is rapid and ruthless, and it may have irreversibly made its home in the streets of Sonargaon.
The only resident in a street that once housed hundreds.
