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Eastern countriesOnce upon a time, the Middle East was not called "the Middle East". It was just the east - that's all. Because travelers from Europe first got to those countries of Asia and North Africa that were closer. And only then we sailed to India, and even later - to Japan.
Then they realized that they had to somehow separate these "easts", which together were the size of several Europes. India began to be called simply India. Everything near Japan is the Far East. And those countries that are closer are Neighbors.
People in the Middle East have been living for many millennia, so there are a lot of historical and architectural monuments there. The most famous of them are, of course, the Egyptian pyramids. And there are also huge palaces, very similar to those that we see in cartoons about Aladdin. By the way, a fairy tale about him was also invented in the Middle East, like many other fairy tales from the famous book "One Thousand and One Nights".
Did you know that the numbers that the whole world uses now were also invented in the East? That's what they're called - Arabic numerals. After all, there were many famous mathematicians in the Middle East. And local astronomers managed to discover many constellations and planets - long before they were discovered by Europeans.
Now almost all useful things are made by machines. And in the Middle Ages, people made each of them, from a spoon to a carriage, by hand. At that time, crafts were very developed in the Middle East. For example, in the city of Damascus, in Syria, they made the best steel in the world. Damascus blades were appreciated by warriors all over the world, they were irreplaceable in battle and were very expensive.
In the Middle East, they made beautiful metal and pottery. And oriental fabrics were so beautiful that many thought they were sewn from gold threads. Trade in the Middle East has always existed. The largest trade routes intersected there. Caravans with tea and dishes from China, carpets and spices from India stretched across the deserts under the hot sun.
By the way, deserts occupy most of many eastern countries - for example, the huge Arabian Desert stretches over almost the entire Arabian Peninsula, on which the state of Saudi Arabia is located. In other countries there are mountains and long rivers, such as the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates. And in Israel there is a very strange Dead Sea - it is so salty that it is impossible to drown in it.
Now people in the Middle East live the same way as they did a thousand years ago. They ride camels and sell fluffy carpets and colorful clothes in huge bazaars. True, in the middle of the last century, oil was found in many countries of the Middle East, and people there quickly got rich. The city of Dubai, which once had only clay houses and tents of Bedouin nomads, is now completely built up with huge modern skyscrapers. And millions of flowers bloomed in the lifeless desert - just like in oriental fairy tales.
От: dsm3 (advego) © wm-painting.ru (transl),
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