Sunny Island: Fairy Tales – Not Cheating

Every time, Saipan residents ask about the weather, those popular explain that the days on the island are only two types: warm, when, regardless of the time of year, 29 degrees in the shade, and cool, when these degrees are about a couple less. The sea and in winter, and in the summer almost one degree – 26. There is, however, exclusion in the form of occasionally occasionally typhoons who are used somewhere in these Pacific land and emerge. But they did not interfere with Saipan to take a worthy place in the Guinness Book of Records for the most stable temperature in the world..

When it takes up, a clear case, I want to cool with a liquid – at least outside, even from the inside. This circumstance largely became the motive of the two other world records installed on Saipan. Direct hit in the Guinness Island Records Book made, becoming the world leader in the number of beer consumed per capita. And on April 17, 1999, the most massive diving in the world was recorded there when 215 divers were plunged into the lagoon. The list of records could be continued by mentioning at least the Mariana vaccine-record holder in a depth of over 11 kilometers in the immediate vicinity of which Saipan is located in the world in the world.

The sea here, as they say, is changing seven times a day, refuting the most bold assumptions about how many shades can be in the blue. Maybe this is a record. And on such a island and without ours? – have the right to ask Never who did not miss Saipan reader. And will be in their assumptions rights. Without them really nowhere. Even if the whole island is 23 kilometers long and 8 kilometers wide.

our trail after years, through distances

Gordon Marciano little doubts that at the Northern Mariana Islands, one of which is Saipan, the first ours appeared five hundred and back, that is, Magellan and his team, who are considered by European primary discovers of these territories landed there in 1521. If Magellan, who needs to think, did not understand that the natives live according to the principle "all my – yours and vice versa", Relations with them did not work out to such an extent that he called Marians "Islands thieves" And even so marked them on the map, then the ahead of his our kitoboev was all right.

In the proof, Gordon places himself and not without pride says that his grandmother was named Alandan in honor of the Siberian River’s name, on the shores of which, on the conviction of Saipan, and lived the conquered heart of the local beauty of his our Prashas. Looks like, however, Gordon is slightly mistaken. It is difficult to imagine our kitoboev in Aldan long before conquering Siberia Yermak. Nevertheless, the story is beautiful.

On Saipan, everything is beautiful. "Now ours on Saipan live people 20 – Travel agents, guides, diving instructors and even the owner of the restaurant of our cuisine", – Tatyana, Sales Manager in one of the best hotels in Fiesta Resort Island & SPA. Once she lived on another island, which is also on "SA" Begins, on "N" Ends, and it is located almost on the same longitude, only much north – on Sakhalin. It so happened that Tanya and her future husband Vincent fell into a spent American town next to Seattle on the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean. There is also their own version of the story about how people meet, fall in love, marry.

Let the girl of his dreams in Russia, the young Saipanian did not want, that was Tanya Alekseeva, having moved from the Cold Island to warm, Tanya Babauta. Her mom, reading the letters of the future son-in-law with a dictionary, a daughter blessed. The parents of Vincent were also accepted, especially since earlier on another Sakhalin girl had already managed to marry another son, and the rest took themselves to the wives of other foreign filed – who is a chummy who are Vietnamese, and who is American or Philipino.

"On Saipan as a rule, large families, because most of the locals of Catholics, and abortions on the northern Marians are prohibited by law, and here they are judged as for the murder", – explains Tatyana. Becoming the genuine patriot of Saipan, Tanya dreams that her love shall divide as much compatriots as possible. Tourists from Russia, in any case, while in an explicit minority, although they are here, it seems, and more than other Europeans. Asians prevail, first of all the Japanese, the number of which is measured by many tens of thousands per month, as well as the Chinese and Koreans, especially since Tokyo to Saipan to fly three and a half hours, and from Shanghai or Seoul approximately the same.

Our compatriots began to master Saipan in the early 90s. Defalt This process has suspended somewhat, but now the curve reflecting the number of tourists from Russia again went up. And everyone has their own reasons to fall in love with the island forever. Evgeny diving amateur specially arrived here for a couple of days, having listened to the stories about Grotto – the most unique in the beauty of the underwater architecture of Saipan’s dive site, and leaving in complete admiration, although it warns that entering the ocean through a complex system of underwater grottoes – not for beginner divers. If you never dived at all, then there are quite a few other sites in Sipan and in its surroundings, and everything you need, our dive guides will be taught.

However, people who do not need scablands on the bottom and gift are also good on Saipan. "Last year we were in the Emirates, "Mikhail shared impressions, who came to Saipan with his wife and her daughter after the march of the sights of Japan. – There, of course, too good. But this, you see, such as say, Disneyland. And here is all". Saipan authorities our guests are always welcome and ready to take charter flights from Russia. Tanya and her colleagues for their part care that they feel here at home and multiply. V "Fiese" Thanks to the energetic Sakhalin girl, staff almost without an accent: "Good morning" and "thanks", All necessary reference materials can be obtained in our, there are our books and magazines on a special booth, and in the bar – our karaoke.

Nature that is not?

Try finding the word in dictionary or online "Chamolinets". Personally, it caught only once once, and then due to typo. And yet there is such a word. In any case, this is exactly what the above-mentioned Gordon is named, which, although it is proud that our, as well as Spanish, Portuguese and even Japanese blood, the Spanish, Portuguese and even Japanese blood gives one-time priority, as most of his ancestors belonged to Nationality Chamorro and Carolintsam, that is, residents of the Caroline Islands, located south of Mariana.

Chamorro, which are allegedly immobally from Southeast Asia – Indigenous Population of Saipan and other Mariana Islands. They appeared there, as believed, about 1500 years before.NS. Chamorro was able to pull out of the rocks of piles, which served as the foundation for their dwellings, catch the fish, to make the boom poisoned by the pipe poison from human bones and prepare fruit meat (t.E. Feeding with fruit) bats in coconut milk – local delicacy. His now you can enjoy on the Rota Island.

The Matriarchate reigned on the islands, and although the leaders were men, they were chosen exclusively women. Weak floor generally allowed a lot. Let’s say my husband is returning everything from the same fishing home and wants to please his wife a good catch. Not there was something. Shoes him behind the threshold, which means divorce in Chamorrs, look for another narrowed. The standard of female beauty was considered white hair and black teeth. To achieve ideal, the hair was bleached with crushed corals, and the teeth were pushing, reaching the desired black by chewing all sorts of herbs. Women with rich sexual experience were considered the best spouses. But nobody gave the right to treason to treason, nobody talked with his wrong husband, including his relatives, to whom he left a deceived wife. Children did not scold and the more did not beat, they answered the unquesting obedience, and if they were unhappy with something, they showed that they were angry, throwing sand over his shoulder.

In 1565, the islands declared their Spaniards who seem to be decided to call Nazamro. However, the reputation of the islands created by Magellan scared the European sailors from them a good hundred years. The situation has changed dramatically in 1668, when missionaries of Jesuit orders headed by Reego Diego Louis de San Vittoes, in order to turn the natives to Catholicism on the islands. By the way, it was in those years that Marian Islands found their current name in honor of the princess of Mary Anna – the future heiress of the Spanish throne. Jesuit operation on the transformation of Chamorrro in Orthodox Christians, someone may call successful. In any case, and now Catholicism is dominated by Saipan.

However, then everything was not at all just. Rev. San Vittoris was killed by the leader Matphan when he was trying to baptize his son. Spaniards defeated the natives to the southernmost from Mariana Island – Guam, whereas Saipan, Tinian and other islands were empty. Spanish colonization is generally expensive by the local population. His number, mainly due to European diseases, from which local residents did not have immunity, decreased from about 50 thousand people to 6000, and according to some data, and up to one and a half thousand people.

The new fundamental fracture occurred in 1815, when a group of residents of the Carolinsky Islands arrived at Mariana on Flootilla, headed by the leader with a difficult-acting name Aghruruck. The legendary navigator led his people there, went to seek the best stake after a catastrophic Typhoon. On Saipan, he generally did not find anyone, giving the island name "Siepel", that translated means "Empty trip". The name behind the island has been fixed, but later it turned out somewhat and transformed into the current – Saipan.

Finding on the islands the authorities in the form of the Spanish Governor, Aghruruck asked him permission to settle there forever, and received "good", as well as a cane with a hat. With these attributes, the leader and immortalized in the form of a monument on a fabulous beauty and considered one of the best spaces in the world for snorkeling, that is, a swimming with a mask and a tube, a coral island of Managah, which is from Saipan 10 minutes away by a lightweight boat. Legend says that he is buried there, and standing in order to minimize the danger that someone comes on his grave. So on Marians Chamorro began to coexist with the Carolinians, which are higher, have a darker skin color and "you" With the forces of nature.

Gordon assures that his grandfather Caroline could, for example, in the most terrible shower movement of the hand to outline the square, and there the rain stopped. However, says the descendant of the our Kitoboy, for many years the Chamorro was so merged with Carolinians, which is now in its pure form there are neither those nor others, but there are only Chamolinians, which he also counts himself. Strictly speaking, and this neologism is not so accurate, since the locals mixed up with the Spaniards, and with the Germans who have changed them at the end of the XIX century, who bought the islands after the Spanish-American War for $ 4 million, and the Japanese who were driven by the Germans during First World War and it is here that, among other things, invented sugar raffin, and the Americans who defeated, in turn, the Japanese and – Eureka! – Inventing DHL mail here – Express delivery of correspondence and parcels. And somehow, nevertheless, remained themselves, that is, the Chamolinians. And to whom it is to the fact that there is no such word in the dictionaries?

Flying over a suicide rock

For many years, David Sablan sees the same dream. "I dream of how I walk in the air above the suicide, "he says. – First I go on the ground, but then my body becomes easy, and I rises above the rock. After that I wake up. I, of course, do not fly, but I am alone and so happy". The prosperous Saipan businessman was 9 years old when the war began, but he remembers it clearly and clearly. For residents of Saipan, it began in December 1941, when, after falling on Pearl-Harbor, the Japanese troops on December 10 invaded GUAM – the only one of the Mariana Islands, which then belonged not to the Japanese, and the Americans. "The Japanese considered us as the people of the third grade, "recalls Sablan. – The first were, then there were Okinair, residents of Saipan and, finally, the Koreans, who were allocated the fourth grade. The third variety, for example, after 6 pm it was forbidden to fish, swim. Maximum – go for shopping, and even then only the store that they will indicate.

Japanese told us that the Americans are terrible people that they will kill all men, and women will take care of them. We, schoolchildren, teachers were idle it in the head. We were told: take the sickles and cut their feet". After the first success of the Japanese caused by the suddenness factor, the scales bowl in the War in the Pacific became more and more in favor of the United States and their allies. "The island was overcooked by Japanese Military, – recalls Sablan. – I think the Japanese was then 50-60 thousand. American submarines destroyed all Japanese ships that followed by. Many Japanese died, but some saved, and they stayed on Saipan". Saipan’s residents once again had dismountain. "All schoolchildren were forced to manually build an emergency runway for Japanese mile-long aircraft – Sablan says. – I worked a whole year. We dragged sand, stones. Free work. Modern international airport was a runway for Japanese military aircraft".

Adults were even worse. Grandfather Gordon, who did not listen to the Japanese soldiers, those hung on the cross and lasted so three days without food and drinking in the edification of other islanders. David’s father, who spoke in seven languages, the Japanese accused of espionage and lasted two months in prison, but did not find any evidence. The moment of truth has arrived in 1944, when one of the most bloody battles occurred on Saipan during the war in the Pacific Ocean. "Americans started constant bombing on June 10, 1944, – continues my interlocutor. – It was Sunday. I will never forget. We did not fully understand what was happening. Airplanes fought in the air, fell on the ground, many guns led fire. Father said the Americans will fall. And we hid in the cave. We lived there for three weeks and fed only with sugar cane. A few days later the bomb fell next to the cave entrance. Grass, bushes, trees – all burning. We were 50 people in the cave. We heard the Japanese shout "Banzai". Bombing lasted five days in a row twice a day – in the morning and in the evening.

And on June 15, from the western side of Saipan, landing land began. American ships were so much that there was no horizon. In the first half of August, the Americans finally captured Saipan. The Japanese commander made himself a harakiri in a cave, which was a command item. The Japanese waited that their ships will come to the philippines, but they did not come, because the Americans received information about this and sent airplanes who bombed them. Japanese commander before you drove my belly, wrote a note, ordered subordinates also to commit suicide. And they walked on the suicide rock and crashed about stones, jumping from a 200-meter height. Others wanted to die for their emperor as close as possible to Japan and went from the command item on the cliff Banzai, where they also did Harakiri and jumped into the sea. Those who surrendered, in 1945 sent to Japan, but there were very few.

Nobody knows exactly, but three or four thousand Japanese civilians jumped into the sea. The total number of Japanese who died on Saipan is approaching 50 thousand. Mariana Islands played another role in the last days of World War II. From here, from here, from the neighboring Island of Tinian, in August 1945 bombers in-29 went bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. American scorers of Saipan in their consequences were not so destructive, but as a result of airlinalets and ground fighting, vegetation on the island burned out so that the American aircraft later had to circle over the island, throwing seeds to restore it.

Local Floor This gave a unique originality. Even before the Americans, however, they put her hand and the Japanese, who were delivered to the so-called Marians "Burning trees", Fire-red flowers of which became the symbol of the islands.

Among the Japanese in the Mariana Islands, such, for whom the war ended much later. In the summer of 1944, over 30 Japanese men and one woman Kadzuko Higi with American ships were reached. They did not know that the war was long over long, and they survived as they could in the huts made of palm leaves, they fed on coconuts, sugar cane, fish and lizards, smoked dried papaya sheets and drank coconut cylindows called tube.

Cardinal changes arrived in January 1945, when a flying bombing Japanese city was collapsed on the island "Super loyalty" B-29. From the fragments of the fuselage, the Japanese made knives and roofs for dwellings, from parachuting silk updates, and the pistols that were withdrawn from the dead American pilots became decisive arguments in disputes about who will be the next "husband" Kadzukuk Higi. Then because of "wives", then because of the food, or even after the next adoption inside the tubes, the men arranged stabbing, with the result that the Japanese population of the island decreased by six to seven people. In July 1950, noting next to the island of an American ship, Higa left compatriots on Anatakhan. Japanese men on the island managed to convince only after the request of the Americans their relatives in Japan wrote letters, saying that the war had long completed that the Japanese were friends with the Americans and what was better not to fool, but to surrender.

Letters were rubbed and reset on the island from the air, and in June 1951, the Japanese agreed to surrender to the captain of the American tug, who arrived from Saipan "Cockop". It seems that they became the last, who surrendered during World War II. National heroes in Japan, however, they were not, and Sergeant Seyty Iokoy, who over 26 years after the end of the war hide in the jungle of the Southern Mariana Islands – Guam, was found only in 1972, and did not give up, was repatriated to his homeland , a quarter of a century lived with the Japanese wife, wrote a bestseller about the art of survival, unsuccessfully ran into parliament and died in 1997 at the age of 82 years from a heart attack.

"After the Americans captured Saipan, they provided us with complete freedom, and we were able to live as they themselves want", – Says David Sablan. In fact, the island in fact immediately after the end of the war was under the US. Over the past three decades, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, which includes all Marians except Guam, who is the ownership of the United States, has status "freely joining" To the United States of the territory. In practice, this means that local self-government is operating on the islands, but foreign policy, defense and finances are under the jurisdiction of Americans. But to become the 52nd US state – no, dismissal. "Us and so good in the friend. We are free. Free to invite anyone to themselves, say, friends from Russia (American visa, by the way, at the entrance to Saipan is not required, but enough permission, which issues immigration authorities at the request of the hotel). If we become an American staff, we will have to pay taxes for our land. Look at Guam, who became the territory of the United States. There, many lost the land of their ancestors, because they could not pay taxes for it. And I do not want to lose your ancestors. I saw Hawaii. I feel sorry for Hawaiians. Therefore, we say: Leave us alone, we have everything Okay. We do not want to jeopardize the future of our children".

Although the official language in Saipan, as well as on other islands of the Commonwealth, English, the monetary unit is the dollar, and you need to call there through "1", like in the United States, sometimes the impression is that it is some kind of mistake, there are many Japanese here. They restored their presence on Saipan to such an extent that even some Chinese restaurants have Japanese names here. Local residents are not against, partly from purely arithmetic considerations, because if somewhere outlines, the same as the costs of wealthy tourists from Japan significantly provide an island of economic prosperity. However, it is even more important that the Chamolins are generally amazingly friendly, they are not smiling at the debt of the service, but simply because smiling are ready to dick on the barbecue on the seashore and do not drive even tattooed Japanese Yakuza, if those, of course, do not nothing illegal, although on the beaches in a number of countries in the region they are categorically prohibited.

Newspaper "Saipan Tribyun" He told about how the Japanese doctor Hirubee Maid, for ten years in a row coming to Saipan from Tokyo, arrived on the island in the anniversary 100th time. Why? Yes, because you like. Maybe there really is on this island, where the blue sea can not choose a color to himself and where people know how to stop the rain, something magical and attracting an unknown magnet. Even those who could not taste the roast of fruit bats in coconut milk.