Lost Empire of Tartaria The theory that a grand empire once spanned Eurasia and perhaps even North America. Post date October 24, 2021 By Nick Ottens In Steam 1754 map of Asia by Jean Palairet The lost empire of Tartaria is the most delightful conspiracy theory. It posits that a technologically advanced civilization spanned Eurasia and perhaps parts of North America until as recently as a century ago, when it was erased from history. What’s left of Tartaria are ornate and seemingly out-of-place structures, from opulent churches in Russia to the Shanghai Bund. The theory stems from disappointment in modern architecture. We once had fabulous Art Deco skyscrapers, Beaux-Arts train stations and Second Empire post offices. Now everything is a glass-and-concrete box. What happened? The theory is that Americans and Europeans didn’t build those monuments. They are the legacy of a Tartarian Empire that emanated out of Northeast Asia. Are we supposed to believe that eighteenth-century mapmakers drew a vast “Tartaria” in that region out of ignorance? Surely not! Tartaria was real, and it was the most powerful empire of its time. The Great Wall of China was built not by the Chinese to keep the barbarians out, but by the Tartarians to keep out the Chinese. Opinions are divided about the empire’s demise. Some believe a biblical-sized mud flood decimated Tartaria, which also explains why so many old buildings have what we now call semi-basements. Adherent of this theory suspect monuments like Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow’s Red Square continue tens or even hundreds of meters underground. Art by Carioca Studio Others suspect World War II was really a war of all against Tartaria, and the destruction of old Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw and other cities in Central and Eastern Europe was a deliberate effort to wipe away the traces of a rival civilization. Berlin in 1920 Berlin in 1920 Dresden in the 1930s Warsaw in 1939 Whatever the catalyst, after this “great reset” history was rewritten by the victors and the surviving Tartarian buildings were recast as the creations of contemporary architects. What had been Tartaria’s moving capital was implausibly reimagined as “world’s fairs”. How else to explain that, every few years during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, palatial complexes emerged all over the Northern Hemisphere? For entertainment? And then they would be demolished after the event was over? That makes no sense! Pavilions of the Nations at the 1889 Exposition Universelle Fountain Coutan and the Central Dome of the 1889 Exposition Universelle Grounds of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition Court of Honor and Grand Basin of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition MacHinery Hall at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition Administration Building of the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition Grand Court of the 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition Palace of Electricity at the 1900 Exposition Universelle 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition at night 1929 Barcelona International Exposition The fairgrounds were not the only beautiful buildings razed to the ground. The original Penn Station, bulldozed in 1963-68 to make way for the ghastly Madison Square Garden, is the most infamous American example. But it is hardly the only one. The Waldorf-Astoria, the grandest hotel in the world, was sold and torn down in 1929, because New York high society had moved north, toward the Upper East Side. The City Hall Post Office and Courthouse of New York, built on Broadway in the Second Empire style between 1869 and 1880, was demolished in 1939 to expand City Hall Park. The Chicago Federal Building boasted a dome larger than the United States Capitol. It was razed in 1965 and replaced by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Kluczynski Federal Building. Waldorf-Astoria in 1899 City Hall Post Office and Courthouse of New York in 1898 Chicago Federal Building in 1961 Built in stages between 1897 and 1908, the headquarters of the Singer Manufacturing Company, now Singer Corporation, in New York was the tallest skyscraper of its time. Incorporating Beaux-Arts and Second Empire elements, it was widely considered a Manhattan landmark, yet it would not receive official landmark status from the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, created amid the outcry over Penn Station’s destruction, to prevent its demolition in 1967-69. The site now hosts One Liberty Plaza, a black glass-and-steel box. Singer Building in 1913 Singer Building in 1965 The Saltair was a resort on the Great Salt Lake of Utah that burned down in a fire in 1925. The former National Surgical Institute of Indianapolis, Indiana became the Imperial Hotel around the turn of the last century. Its domes and turrets were removed in the 1920s, when it became the Hotel Roosevelt. It was razed between 1945 and 1949 to make way for a parking lot. (Such incredible reasons for demolition are another red herring to Tartaria’s believers.) Prince Grigor...