Kanoman Palace in Cirebon on the brink of extinction
Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post, Cirebon, West Java
Kanoman Palace, which was built in 1588, is on the brink of ruin. If there is no immediate helping hand to save it, the national heritage will become no more than a pile of rubble.
"If there is no effort to improve the maintenance of the palace, within 10 years the palace will surely fall to ruin," said Queen Mawar Kartika, a palace official in charge of palace maintenance, who is also the daughter of the late Sultan Muhammad Djalaludin.
She said efforts to conserve the 16th-century palace was impeded by its advanced state of erosion and lack of funds.
Conserving Kanoman Palace has faced difficulties since the 1960s, she said, when the palace's economic assets was seized by the government as part of a nationalization program under president Soekarno, leaving the palace with no money for maintenance or conservation efforts.
Before the 1960s, the palace could easily finance maintenance projects, as it still possessed huge plots of land in Cirebon, which they rented out. The revenue collected were channeled toward maintaining the historical site.
Tenant businesses and government offices included state-run train operator PT Kereta Api Indonesia, the Cirebon mayoral administration and cigarette maker PT British American Tobacco.
"After the government seized the land in 1960, we lost our source of revenue," Mawar said.
Among the historical palaces in the country, Kanoman Palace has received minimal attention from the government.
The one and only government aid of Rp 370 million (US$43,529) was disbursed to the palace in 1997, when the palace was the host of the Archipelago Palace Festival (FKN).
"It was the first and only time we received any aid," said Mawar.
The aid was used to finance the restoration of the palace's veranda. "However, the aid was not enough to restore other sections of the palace," said Mawar.
Not only palace officials, but head of the Cirebon legislative council Suryana has also voiced concern over the neglected palace. The councillor has demanded the government to pay more attention to the fate of Kanoman Palace.
"The government should not neglect it. Several parts of the palace are terribly damaged, and if it is not restored immediately, it will turn to rubble," he said.
Kanoman Palace is one of three palaces in Cirebon -- the two others being Kasepuhan and Kacirebonan -- and has sustained the greatest damage from exposure, time and lack of maintenance.
Suryana has taken up the palace's cause, and has vowed to fight for restoration funds for Kanoman in the Cirebon budget. He has also said he would make a special request to President Megawati Soekarnoputri for the allocation of a special government fund to help conserve the historical heritage.
Traveling to the site, The Jakarta Post observed that most of the six-hectare palace was damaged. Parts of the palace wall was covered in moss, its teak furniture and ornaments covered in thick dust and its wooden ceilings were rotting -- in some parts, the ceiling had collapsed.
Mawar said maintaining the palace cost Rp 30 million monthly, but the palace currently had only Rp 7.5 million a month.
"The money comes from our own wallets," she said.