History Of A Place

Jakarta's Histories 

Jakarta or DKI Jakarta is the capitol city of Indonesia. DKI is abbreviatition of :

D = Daerah, In English meaning is teritory

K = Khusus, In English meaning is Special

I =  Ibukota, In English meaning is Capitol

Last June 22nd, we celebrated the 484th birthday of Jakarta, but really just now I really pay attention why the name is Jakarta once my friend Vivi posted something about Jakarta. I think this is good for us to know more about our home country. 

Jakarta is located in the north west of Java island. Before the year of  1527 Jakarta was named Sunda Kelapa, then it changed the name became Jayakarta in duration of year 1527 - 1619, then again change became Batauia or Batavia or Jaccatra in duration of 1619 - 1942, at the end it changed with Djakarta in the years of 1942 - 1972, the end as we know now the new spelling is Jakarta. 

Jakarta is 661,52 km²  ( with the sea surrounded around 6.977,5 km²), with the total population in Jakarta itself  based on statistic is around 9.588.198  (2010). Brrrrrrhhh that's why too packed... And the total population of  Jabodetabek metropolitans areas ( Jakarta - Bogor - Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi - red ) is 23 millions people. 

Grrrrrrrrrrrhhhhh again that's why crowded and traffic every day... That's the reason that Jakarta is known as the 6th rank of the most density population in the world. 

Why the birthday is on June 22 ?, the reason behind is refer to the decree letter of Sudiro the Jakarta's Major in period of 1953 - 1958. And based in the history that the Dutch colonial's era, they celebrated the Batavia's birthday in the end of May 1619 due of  JP. Coen won and conquered Jakarta that time. When celebrating the 250th years of Jakarta's birthday, they built a monument of JP. Coen with the shape of him and pointed down his hand which showed he had won and conqured Jayakarta and as the symbol that they are the colonial in Indonesia, and we now can find this monument at the yard of Monetery Department at Jalan Lapangan Banteng. But when The Japan came too in 1942, they broke down the monument. 

The major Sudiro believed that we should restore and again start to celebrate the birthday of our city, but in different meaning. We celebrate as the day of the Jakarta was built and to remember the history behind it. He collected the historians as like Mr. Mohammad Yamin. Mr. Dr. Sukanto, senior journalist of Indonesia Sudarjo Tjokrosiswoyo to make research when this Jakarta was built by Fatahillah.

Mr. Dr. Sukanto gave him a result scripts with the title is " From Jayakarta to Jakarta ", in that scripts he was assuming that the nearest date when Jayakarta was built is in June 22, 1527. Then The Sudiro Major brought his result scripts to the plenum meeting and they were agreed about it. He brought again to official meeting of city council and they voted to celebrated the Jakarta's birthday on June 22 and the history of Jakarta was built is in June 22, 1527. 

Since then, we celebrate as the tradition every June 22 as our city's birthday. 

Contradiction Opinion About June 22 1527 as the 1st built date of Jakarta by Fatahillah was commented by Adolf Heyken SJ ( the historian too ), he said it was just a fairy-tale. He said there are no documents mentioned about the name of  Jayakarta either. More even he said that Fatahillah was an Arabic, so it was no relation at all about it due to the name of Jayakrta is a sanskrit language, and also after VOC of Dutch Colonial in Jakarta after 50 years of 1527, they still kept on mentioned Sunda Kelapa, not Jayakarta, nor Batavia. 

Some historians' opinions said too that no one built the city. That time in June 22 1527 there was a celebration of the Prophet Muhammad's birthday after Fatahillah succeded kicked out Pourtuguese from Sunda Kelapa and as he was the commander of Demak's empire who conquered the enemy, he had change the name from Sunda Kelapa into Jayakarta. 

So, what ever the history behind it, still we celebrate June 22 as our tradition. That was agreat job though the thoughts of Sudiro as the major of Jakarta. 

Here is the symbol monument of Jakarta, The name is Monas ( abbreviation of Monumen Nasional ) :

Meteora in Greece

Look at those 2 pictures above, they look awesome right !! It's floating in the air on top of the cliff rocks.
This place is called by Meteora which is located in Thessaly Greece, on the Pindus foothills. The building is an Orthodox monastery complex. The name of meteora has a history behind it. It was taken from Greek, meteoros which means Float in The Air. The monastery is located at an altitude of 613 metres heights.

The monks Athanasios and his followers from Athos mountain built these monastery was in purpose for hiding themselves from enemies in the 14th century, when chaos were happening in Greece that time. They built the first monastery in the year of 1356 - 1372. The first monastery was named The Great Meteoron. After the fisrt monastery was built another 19 monasteries also built up to around 20 monasteries. Lately, only 6 monasteries which still in use for the monks. More over, this Meteora is one of the world heritage site by UNESCO and also as tourism destination in Greece.

Long time back, the monks used to climb the hills as their secret passageways with a ladder circuit rope tied. Or using a basket that tied the rope and pull from above. The basket can be contained humans or logistics needs for them on top of the hills. They still used these 2 types of transportations until the 17th century. In the year 1920, they start built stone stairsto get to the top monastery.

It is really floating in the air right !!! Again, this is the thing that we need to appreciate, once upon a time, some people can build this monastery on top of the cliff rocks. Can we imagine how hard it is when making it? I do believe this is not easy job. That's true that this Meteora deserved to be one of the world heritage by UNESCO due the making in the nature field with minimum tools facilities that time.

Again, if you want to know more about this monastery Meteora, please visit the website : http://www.meteora-greece.com/meteora.htm

Happy Weekend Guys !!!