Rangpur (city), Bangladesh
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Rangpur (Bengali: রংপুর) is one of the major cities in Bangladesh. It is located in the Rangpur District of the Rajshahi Division in north-western Bangladesh.
[edit] Places of Interest:
- RDRS (Rangpur and Dinajpur Rural Service) Bangladesh [1], an NGO in northwest Bangladesh, has a large office and guesthouse/convention center in the town of Rangpur.
- Former President Ershad, a Rangpur native, was responsible for many additions to Rangpur. He restored the Tajhat rajbari for use as a courthouse in the 1980's. He also donated land for a zoo with a large park in the center of town. The zoo has a variety of animals, mostly in small British-era style cages. The zoo does have a large aviary, a small monkey cage and an endangered Bengal tiger, in addition to a rhinoceros, lions, a leopard, peacocks, alligators, turtles, spotted deer, and many other animals.
Ershad's home can be found in Sinpara, in the center of town.His another home is situated at Darshana more which is called by "POLLI NEBASH",it is in the north side of Rangpur city and 5 kilometer from city.
- Just south of the city of Rangpur lies the Tajhat, a former "rajbari" or zamindar's palace. After the end of the British Raj, the building was abandoned and decayed rapidly, although it was used for a few years as a courthouse during the 1980's. In the year 2004, it was largely restored and turned into a museum with ancient inscriptions, art and coins from the area on display.Now it is a meuseam not high court.
Rangpur cadet college is a great educational institute in this city which is situated 5 kilometer far from city at Modern more.
[edit] Tajhat Palace
The Tajhat palace is situated three km on the south-east outskirts of the town of Rangpur. This magnificent edifice with about 76 m frontage, rises two stories and faces east. An imposing broad staircase in the center, paved with imported white marble, leads directly above the portico to the upper storey. The palace is crowned by a ribbed conical dome in the centre of the roof with a tall octagonal neck, partly supported on a series of slender semi-Corinthian columns. The balustrade on either side of the imposing staircase was originally embellished with various sculptures of classical Roman figures in Italian marble, but now these are sadly missing. There are two semi-octagonal projections at each end of the front face and a central projecting porch. The balcony roof above the porch is carried on four graceful Corinthian columns with round shafts, whilst two similar columns on each of the projecting ends of the building support a triangular gable. The palace is laid out in the form on a "U", with its open end to the west. Beyond the entrance at ground floor level there is a very large hall, measuring more than 18 x 13 meters. A 3 meter wide corridor runs the entire length of the inner block. Two broad wooden staircases provide access to the upper floor. There are about 22 apartments on two floors.
The palace was built by Maharaja Kumar Gopal Lal Roy in the beginning of the 20th century. He was a descendent of a Hindu khatari who emigrated from Punjab. He was a jeweler by profession. It is believed that from the conspicuous appearance of his Taj or jeweled crown his estate derived the name of Tajhat.
From 1984 to 1991 the palace was used as a Rangpur High Court Branch of the Bangladesh Supreme Court. In 1995 the palace was declared as a protected monument by the Department of Archaeology. Recognizing its outstanding architectural value the Government of Bangladesh shifted the Rangpur Museum to the second floor of the palace in 2005. This small museum has several nice examples of Blackstone Hindu carvings in its back rooms.
There is no entrance fee to the grounds, but there is a fee of 50 Taka for foreigners / 5 Tk for Bangladeshis to go into the Palace to see the museum. It has lovely large grounds, with two large symmetrical ponds on either side of an impressively grand tree-lined driveway entrance.
[edit] Lifestyle
For shopping, there are two large shopping complexes. One is the older "Super Market", a three storied building with a variety of small shops selling everything from soap, shoes and clothes to motorcycles, TVs and fans. There is a more modern building called the Jahaz Company Moore Shopping Complex which has Rangpur's only escalator. At the top of this building is a department store, selling a wide assortment of children's toys, Indian kurtas, shalwar kameezes and saris, and other collectibles.
Karupannya is another store on Station Road which sells Rangpur's famous Satranji handloom carpets, which have earned acclaim for their extraordinary aesthetic appeal. The carpets were made in the village of Nishbetganj and were greatly popular in the Mughal period. In fact, it is believed that emperor Akbar used these carpets to adorn his palace in Delhi.
Karupannya was founded by Shafiqul Alam Selim, who re-established the cottage industry of Satranji at Nishbetganj village. Starting with just five weavers, he has increased to more than 300 weavers today (March 2005) and is now exporting to foreing countries on a small scale. One can purchase a Satranji carpet at the Karupannya showroom in Rangpur or in Banani, Dhaka.
| Cities of Bangladesh | |
|---|---|
| Barisal • Bogra • Chittagong • Comilla • Dhaka • Faridpur • Gopalganj • Jamalpur • Jessore • Khulna • Mymensingh • Narayanganj • Rangpur • Rajshahi • Sylhet | |
