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The Palaces of Calcutta

Image Copyright Stuart Isett/New York Times-All Rights Reserved
Here's an interesting feature from the New York Times on the decaying palaces of Kolkata by the Seattle-based photographer Stuart Isett, who also narrates.

Many of these palaces and regal mansions have been built at the zenith of Calcutta's (now Kolkata) golden age in the second half of the 1700s, when it became the administrative center of the famed East India Company, and was subsequently named the capital of Bengal. During Queen Victoria's reign as Empress of India, it became its imperial capital. It evolved in the following years into a beautiful city of palaces, with an accompanying period of wealth and culture. Once the opium trade (the center of Calcutta's economy) ended, the city went into an irreversible slow decline especially when the capital of India was moved to Delhi.

Most of the Calcutta's palaces are decaying and crumbling beyond repair. With countless of heirs quarreling over these properties, it's virtually impossible to save these structures. Others are sub-let to a variety of tenants, who resist being moved elsewhere by all means. With the chaotic state of the Calcutta's legal system and procedures, they are successful in remaining in these palaces over many generations.

Here's The Palaces of Calcutta. (you may need to resize your browser window.)

More of Stuart's photographs of Calcutta's palaces are here.