Orient-Express, a journey to the heart of Europe
We know of Orient-Express because it has been engraved for decades in our popular culture . We have heard, read and seen his name hundreds of times in multiple books, in movies or in everyday conversations. Yet many of us don't know what is its importance, why did that train mark so many people , to so many artists: what did it mean for history so as not to remain as another means of transport.
For the writer and humanist Maurice Wiesenthal There is no doubt about it: " The Orient-Express is an era, it is history, a treasure, a relic ”. And he compares it to a river, one that crosses Europe, but also our customs, our culture, our history, leaving a part of it in each one of us. That is, it was for a long time a trip to the heart of Europe.
'Murder on the Orient Express'
A train that, as Wiesenthal very well points out in his new book Orient Express. the europe train (Cliff), too served to open the borders of our continent , to get closer to each other. “Just as the European Community we know today was created through that European Coal and Steel Community, the Orient-Express also emerged as a great trade route linking all of Europe from London to Istanbul . From that commercial approach, the train was transformed into something humanistic, which made us gradually open up to the entire continent”.
Being the communications king of his time also made him become a spearhead against nationalism . And that he had to survive two world wars in which patriotism was one of the main causes of their outbreak. “ The Orient-Express was also a form of peaceful struggle against nationalism , since it opens a path of communication. This, without a doubt, created a form of civilization, of brotherhood”.
CULTURE ON RAILS
Created in 1883 , since its inauguration was considered one of the most luxurious trains in the world and in it they traveled millionaires, politicians, businessmen, artists, musicians, intellectuals, spies … Lived multiple lives, conspiracies, hidden loves, unsolved crimes major robberies. It was even used as freight cars during the two world wars.
It had its heyday after World War I, with a total of three expresses crossing Europe, and its decline began in the 1960s. In 1977 it made its last trip between Paris and Istanbul, although it continued with few trips until it stopped working definitively in 2009. , with a last route between Paris and Vienna.
Illustration of the Orient Express dining car (1885)
All this history made it carry an exceptional setting. Therefore, it is not surprising that writers as famous as Christie Agatha , who set his novel Murder on the Orient-Express on this train, and other personalities of that time such as the dressmaker Coco Chanel, the painter Picasso or King Leopold II of Belgium , who left multiple anecdotes as they passed through there.
What Robert Baden Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts , who was served by his love for butterflies to hide his work as a spy while crossing Europe on the Orient-Express. "He made some drawings of butterflies in the notebooks that he carried and the plans of the facilities that he wanted to transfer to the secret service were concealed within his wings," says Mauricio Wiesenthal.
or the famous Kill hari , who used this train to investigate. “He was a very curious character. An adventurous, traveler, wasteful woman, who dedicated herself to the world of varietés . Mata Hari's profile is widely used in times of war. She, unfortunately, ended up shot.
Orient Express: luxury in every detail
A WORLD THAT ALREADY WAS
The Orient-Express was also a true relic in which each convoy was the scene of multiple stories . “Each wagon was decorated with different panels, marquetry, wood, there were artisans they had worked in search of something beautiful. But as usual, not everything was always beautiful and smiling, "says Mauricio. “In addition, in each space there were amazing conversations that could form plays by themselves: a chat between intellectuals, a business between merchants or a family dining in that space”. Situations that were favored by the space in which they took place, but also by the speed at which the trains moved.
Two qualities that were intrinsic to the Orient-Express Y that seem to have been lost to this day : now trips are understood in a different way and “in them the form counts more and less the content”, says Mauricio. And from there it comes the reason for writing this book , which serves to keep that culture still alive and that it continues to be transmitted from father to son. Even so, aware that it was not a perfect or exemplary world, he believes that the Orient-Express was “ a place where people struggled to live doing beautiful things, producing pleasure to the eye, to the taste, to the touch... to life ”, He finishes.
Orient-Express, the trip that already was