Tales from the Balkans

Our home base on the tour was this charming town on the Greek border. Called Zlatograd, literally “golden town,” the town earned this name from the abundance of tobacco crops grown in the area and the golden color the leaves turn when hung out to dry. This view of the “old town,” featuring the local style of revival period architecture, was taken from my hotel room balcony, one of the nicest rooms I’ve ever had. The town boasts an “ethnographic complex” with a small museum and workshops devoted to local arts and trades, along with myriad picturesque scenes of cobbled stone streets.

When shopping for local products or having a massage at the hotel’s spa has left you exhausted, you can stop in for a reviving Turkish, sorry “Bulgarian”, coffee that incorporates a fascinating display of centrifugal force at work as the tray is swung several times around in the air before the sweet, hot product cooked in hot sand is delivered to your table. Show included in the price of 75 cents.

One of the days we went up to a chapel on a hill that turned out to be a few feet from the border with Greece and was heavily guarded by the Bulgarian police who were careful to make sure we didn’t take any photos of the border (a drainage ditch marked by the occasional pile of stones painted white). Slated to become a border crossing to encourage tourist trade, the Greek side is slow to finish their part of the road. The issues of borders is clearly touchy in this part of the world. Here’s a photo of our group generously taken by one of the border patrol and carefully angled in the opposite direction from the border. Seeing as I had my passport one me at the time, I figured I could pop into Greece briefly, but that didn’t seem a good idea.

We hiked the 5km or so back into town, with a serious detour (otherwise known as getting lost) through challening terrain sloped at 80 degree angl and thick with overgrown forest. Despite guidance by a “knowledgeable” local (it had apparently been some decades since he’d covered that portion of the trail), it seemed possible at points that we might have been slipping–literally–in and out of Greece.

The whole area was rather dry, so this garden by the river (a mere trickle in the summer) was a refreshing sight.



Although Zlatograd itself was an interesting town, it was the trips to villages deep in mountains where agriculture is still a major mode of life that was the highlight of the tour for me.

Here we had the fortune to meet local music-dance groups, who were often decked out in their finest. In some cases, like below, this involved wearing thick woolen costumes in sweltering temperatures.

These people were incredibly generous and friendly, greeting us like royalty and welcoming us literally into their homes. In this case, they had prepared a disply of a bridal dowry. With my sewing ability, there would be little chance of marriage for me in Bulgaria, though my height would be an advantage in some parts as the collection has to be as tall as the bride.

The evening would then involve being wined and dined in style. On both occasions of this nature, a feast had been laid out with home cooked dishes, including lamb spit roast, beans, stuffed peppers, layered pastry dishes with cheese, spinach, or squash, and delectable baklava, all to the accompaniment of wine, beer, or rakiya.

After bonding over food and drinks, stuffed, to the gilt, we moved onto to the music and dance. For the first couple of pieces, we sat and observed the groups perform for us. Soon, we were invited up to join in the dance. I oscillated between being a participant in the event and a documenter of it, torn between which role I should fill. When I was doing research in Indonesia, I always thought a couple of drinks would help the all-day or all-night performances along. I discovered in Bulgaria, however, that while the alcohol was great for sociability, easing the way to a bonding experience with people, it was disadventageous to the steadiness of the camera work. I am still left wondering how one combines so much drinking–when it really is critical to the social event, a refusal taken as impolite–with productive fieldwork.

It was very special to be dancing, laughing, sharing food and drinks with people we just met and with whom we had no language in common. Their generosity and openness was really something else, drawing us into a world that few get to visit and experience. On my last night in the region, it was almost a magical experience being up on this promontory jutting out into a valley, with stunning vistas of the mountains surrounding us on all sides, watching the sun set while listening to music. There’s not much else to life. Sometimes I think I’ve got a pretty great job.

After studying in Plovdiv, it was time to hit the road and travel southeast to the Rodopi, one of Bulgaria’s four major mountain ranges, where I would spend four days on an organized tour for music and dance. Sadly, my stomach was less excited about the departure and I spent the first day seriously regretting my gastronomic adventures of the day before and thanking the gods that invented Immodium, a drastic measure I’ve only had to resort to twice in all my years of traveling! Nevertheless, there were plenty of stunning views to enjoy during many hours of driving over roads winding through the mountains, going up and over majestic passes offering stunning vistas.

Our main destination for the day was the small village of Gela, host to a sabor (celebration) in honor of St. Elijah’s day. In the region home to the kaba gaida (large bagpipe), the day was celebrated with the culmination of a bagpipe competition that attracted crowds from around the country and swarms of hippies from around Europe. Their serious imbibition of various intoxicants added to a very different festive feel than rakiya (strong homemade brandy) essential to any Bulgarian (equivalents are found throughout the whole region) celebration produces of its own accord.

Here the hippy crowd is attempting to dance under the influence to the music provided by part of our group: Plovdiv seminar participant, Shinyo, on bagpipe, and seminar organizer, Larry Weiner, on tupan (drum).

Local groups performed as well, undoubtedly sweating buckets under their beautiful but heavy woolen clothing more suited to the winter climate of the mountains than the hot midday sun of summer bearing down on them as they danced and sang, snaking their way through the crowds.

There was a haitus in activity as the next band–the ubiquitous wedding band necessary for the participatory aspect of the sabor–set up their loads of equipment. This band based in a nearby town, included my teacher on a kaval with a pickup, clarinet, sax, two keyboards (one as the bass), drum set, and two vocalists.

Central to genre is amplification through massive speaker systems (just half of the set up depicted below) at the characteristic excruciating volume made only slightly more bearable by being outdoors.

For a little while, I was standing right next to the speakers trying to get good video footage of the band before the meadow was completely taken over by chains of dancers that eventually spread out to a circle of more than a hundred people.

The band ripped through tune after tune, one flowing right into the next. Unlike the most popular wedding band that we had seen at the restaurant back near Plovdiv that shifted meters occasionally during their sets, this band–undoubtedly influenced by the lack of dance/music expertise amongst the audience–played entirely pravo horo, tunes with a meter or feeling of two. By the time we left, the band had been playing non-stop in this meter, like many in Bulgaria based on a specific sequence of dance steps, for more than two hours. Although boring for the musicians (the only variety coming with the occasional improvisational solo), the repetitious rhythm and dance steps of what is arguably one of the simplest dances in Bulgaria allowed for greatest participation, villagers and visitors, young and old alike, joining in the communal experience.

According to one Bulgarian friend–a vocalist who now lives in NYC and did her fair share of singing at weddings over the years, this is what any contemporary village wedding involves. She suggested the event was likely to continue in a similar manner for many hours yet to come. For many contemporary musicians, playing at weddings is their bread and butter, allowing them the freedom to pursue the music they are more passionate about in their free time.

Now that I am home, I have the first reliable internet connection I’ve had access to, and time to access, since my last post promising pictures of Plovdiv. So here they are… the speed of the connection here helps ease the process.

This photo speaks of the waves of influence in a town with a history dating back to the 7000 B.C.E. Here in the center of town connecting the Old Town with the main shopping and entertainment district, we find a statue of Filip Makedonski, father of Alexander the Great, who liberated the city from the Thracians; a Roman stadium dating from the 2nd century C.E.; and the Dzhumaya mosque dating from the 15thC that tells of Ottoman influence.

The following picture needs few words, but tells of more recent influences. In case you’re confused by the vertical sign, that’s “McDonald’s” in cyrillic, though I hardly thought the term needed translation.

The shopping/entertainment district early on a Saturday morning before the swarms of people arrive. Like many European capitals, the area is packed with dozens of outdoor cafes catering to the important habit of socializing over a caffeinated or alcoholic beverage and a cigarette or ten.

This area contrasts significantly with the picturesque Old Town with its Roman ruins (including part of an old wall here), cobbled roads, and Revival Era (19thC) architecture with walls jutting out over the street.

Temelko, my kaval teacher, and I

I have not written much of my adventures in Bulgaria until now because the pace has been hectic. After a night in Sofia, I jumped on a bus for Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second largest city that sits at the foot of the Rhodope Mountains. One of the oldest European cities with well preserved Roman ruins and a renowned arts academy, Plovdiv has earned the title “cultural capital” of Bulgaria. It is here that I took part in a Folk Seminar for a week. For 3-hours a day I took lessons in the kaval (Bulgarian flute), I also took singing classes, and can now stumble my way through a couple of basic dances along with the cyrillic alphabet (I don’t, however, always know the meaning of the words I can read).

The highlight of the seminar was a series of performances by master musicians, including a gaida (bagpipe) and vocal duo from the Rhodopes,

a master wind-instrument maker from whom I couldn’t resist buying a flute or two (here he is putting the final touches on my kaval)

, a kaval player and his orchestra that plays at weddings, a 74-year old tambura (strummed lute) player that was a star player on the radio for many years, and a wacky duo that played covers of Gershwin’s “Summertime” on the bagpipe and accordion.

There were also workshops with visiting dance-music groups from various villages, though I didn’t get to attend many as I was busy with instrument lessons.

With dance parties at night, the schedule was extremely full, and I often had to choose which event not to attend just to get a moment to breathe so I could process the next load of information.

The final evening at a restaurant in a nearby village featured one of the most popular wedding bands in the region, whose line up featured some of the faculty from the seminar. They ripped through 20 minute medleys of tunes–often at breakneck speeds–with virtuosity at excruciating volumes, encouraging diners (many of whom were already attached to our group of 40 or so from the seminar) to get up and dance by forming a long chain that snaked its way around the tables. Presentations by students of the seminar variously garnered equal enthusiasm–happy to say the singing group I was part of was very well received.

Plovdiv itself is a beautiful city, especially with its Old Town that features a huge Roman ampitheatre and revival era (1800s) architecture lining its cobble stone streets. As my teacher left the last day for a gig, I took the opportunity to do a little sight-seeing and shopping. Photos and more stories to follow…

View from my hotel

Driving into Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital city, from the international airport, I was immediately struck by the contrasts with Slovenija. That impression has lessened over time as I have seen more of the country, but differences there are. The climate is considerably drier in summer, the landscape drier, dustier, and browner. On my way from Sofia to Plovdiv, I passed fields of crops wilting in the heat, the sunflowers dropping down. In Sofia, many more buildings and sidewalks in a state of disrepair than I saw in Slovenija. Where everyone apologized profusely for their terrible English in Slovenija, though they spoke beautifully, many in Sofia I interacted with spoke little to no English.

Along with Romania, Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007, but to my mind there is less apparent evidence of this status. I have passed numerous building projects halted in mid-progress. On the surface level, at least, there is less apparent economic affluence. While a handful are clearly flourishing in the new capitalist climate, the profusion of old cars and less fashionable clothing styles suggest others are struggling to get by. Indeed, the EU has halted funding for many projects because there is not sufficient evidence that the money was invested in the project rather than lining someone’s pocket. And, of course, virtually ever town is littered with buildings and apartment buildings from the socialist era, this one complete with a discarded crane.

Money, however, has been invested in the upkeep of religious institutions; there are churches and mosques with shining gold or silver domes in Sofia and other towns.

Since I have been traveling here in Slovenia I have eaten more dairy and desserts than I usually eat in a year and far more meat than I am accustomed to. This is certainly no place for a vegan (though there are some around and a solid movement that supports organic and local foods), and is not all that friendly to vegetarians (fried cheese is a frequent option on set menus). Most self-proclaimed vegetarians part of the group have lapsed on this trip. And moving further south into the Balkans promises even more emphasis on meat.

Neither Slovenian/ Austrian/ Central European nor Balkan cuisine is the lightest (or healthiest–kaymak, for instance, is pure butter fat) of cuisines but I figure it all works out in the wash with all the walking around town and climbing mountains (in accordance with an important national pastime) that I am doing. Food, after all, is an important part of cultural practice. And for those around in Oberlin, I have a cookbook so we can explore some of these options on the dinner party circuit.

One of the most famous desserts–celebrated in song–is gibinica, a cheesecake with layers of poppyseed, apple, and walnut.

Then there’s štruklji and its variants, which can be either a main course or a dessert depending which region and country you are in. Essentially it involves noodle/pasta of some kind and–big surprise–cheese.

Moving onto the meat side of things, I had an amazing goulash up the top of a 1900+m mountain in Austria (we took a chairlift most of the way up, but hiked down below the tree line and back up again for a few hours). By then it was rainy and cold, so the goulash was much appreciated.

The meat I’ve most frequently consumed (and enjoyed), however, is čevapčiči (yes, I can even pronounce it!)–small, spicy elongated meat balls that are a mainstay of food found in Balkan restaurants. These are often eaten in some combination of bread, ajvar (red pepper spread), kaymak (that yummy, but not bad-for-you, butter fat), and, less occasionally, vegetables.

Čevapčiči are the sausage-shaped meatballs at the far end of the platter

There’s one meat, however, that I just can’t bring myself to sample and that’s horse. Horse burgers are on offer here in Ljubljana and are particularly popular late in the night after a long drinking session. I’ve heard they are good….

Drinks range from local teas to strong espressos and Turkish coffee, though pivo (beer), wine, and schnapps (including plum, pear, and apricot, my favorite thus far) are extremely popular. I try to sample the local favorites wherever I go. Although I wont get to visit Serbia this visit, I managed to sample a beer from Beograd on the train back to Ljubljana from Zagreb.

Phew. It’s been a busy few weeks traveling around Slovenia on various trips, up to Austria for some R & R, and down to Zagreb, Croatia for a folk festival. The days have been variously packed with all kinds of music, meeting folklorists and local pop stars, hiking and other outdoor activities, and, of course, food and drinks, all crucial parts of the study abroad trip.

One of the highlights of the trip was seeing Marko and Boban Markovic in concert in Koper, a town on the 47km long coast of Slovenia sandwiched between Italy and Croatia. I only found out the day before the gig that they were playing, and was initially dismayed that they weren’t playing in town. But then I thought about it: “What’s so crazy about jumping on a train to travel a couple of hundred kms to go to the coast to hear one of my favorite bands and what has often been classified as the best Rom (gypsy) Balkan brass band?” After all, I did this kind of thing all the time during fieldwork in Indonesia and music is what this trip is all about. I even managed to convince some students to join me and be as crazy as I was. So we set off at the last minute without hotel reservations and little idea of what we would really find. When we got there, the hostel and many hotels were completely booked. We managed, however, to secure rooms in a more upmarket place and set off to the old town for dinner.

With fish fresh from the Adriatic grilled in garlic and herb olive oil sauce, I had one of the most amazing fish meals of my life that was perfectly complemented by Malvazija, the crisp white local wine, served in tiny 0.20l glasses (in other words a couple of mouthfuls) and the sun setting over the water.

Although we made it to the concert stage just after it should have begun, we were in plenty of time and snagged a position close to the stage where we blasted by the 10-piece brass and 2-person percussion sections and danced (and sweated) the night away. In true Roma style, the rhythmic drive, improvisation and virtuosity was astounding.

Marko i Boban Markovic: the kings of gypsy brass (thanks to Eric Schmidt for the photo)

After a late night, we explored the old town and vistas from the top of the cathedral tower. We happened to reach the top of the 40m tower providing vistas over the town of Koper just before midday

and so were directly above the bells when they chimed at full force. That was an amazing acoustical experience.

As I sit here writing I am listening to a CD entitled The Greatest Traditional Music of Slovenia. And wouldn’t you know it, but after the first track of Katalena, a a folk revivalist group, the next track is a polka played on the accordion, the sound, if any one can be defined as such, that has become emblematic of Slovenia and is ubiquitous in a large section of the country, much to the chagrin of people from other parts of the country. For instance, when Slovenian superstar Vlado Kreslin visited our class last week, he was not shy sharing his feelings about the polka, playing the music from his region imbued with a decidedly more nostalgic and down beat. It was really quite something that he was willing to drive 3-hours from his home in the Prekmurje region (known affectionately as the “head of the chicken” that is Slovenia) up on the border with Hungary to come to our class. A marvelous entertainer, his appearance was one of the highlights of the class.

But we’ve had our polka moments in class, too. One day took us to the ethnographic museum where a large part of the exhibit on music was devoted to polka and there were more accordions on exhibit than I have possibly seen in my life. Certainly a lot of really beautiful and colorful instruments, some of the exhibits even showing the construction (a must see for organology enthusiasts).

While the celebration of polka, its musicians, and especially those involved in the style that came to be known as the national popular style was to be expected, I was not prepared for the tribute to Cleveland, its style of polka, and Frankie Yankovic (the king of Polka, at least in America). As Cleveland is home to the largest Slovenian population outside Slovenia (approx. 75,000 people), I guess it makes sense to celebrate the achievements of Slovenians emigrants back in a homeland that boasts a population of less than 2 million people.

It seems there has also been an active interchange of musical style as in the 50s the American scene, especially the Cleveland-style, was influenced by developments in the national popular style here in Slovenia. The most prominent reformists (revivalists?) were the famous Avsenik ensemble and we visited Begunje, their hometown later in the week.

Along with a platinum and multiple gold records, their museum proudly displayed proclamations of welcome to and honorary citizenship of Cleveland, along with awards from the National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame (a definite field trip for the Fall) and the Cleveland Slovenian Radio Club.

It’s been totally fascinating to me that of all the cities in America to be celebrated here in Slovenia, it is Cleveland; the city just a half hour drive from Oberlin that has become my new playground. And I thought I was escaping the midwest for the summer…

It’s been a busy week digging deeper into life in Slovenia, so this post might be more of a photo narrative than a wordy one. Although part of former Yugoslavia, Slovenia’s socialist past is not nearly as evident as one might assume, at least from a visual perspective here in Ljubljana. The psychological and emotional memory is an entirely different manner.

FINDING RELIGION

The re-discovery, or more accurately the reintroduction of religious practices into public life, is one thing that is evident. This week we visited the Serbian Orthodox church built in 1936 with the former director of the church choir. The interior was beautiful, the religious iconography with decorations of 1003 saints truly sumptuous, the acoustics phenomenal with the marble floor and high cupolas. The space oozed with a spiritual quality, inspiring reverence for the religious practices of those people from Slovenia’s orthodox minority who do come worship here, an experience perhaps deepened following my pilgrimage to the U.S. Embassy that morning to apply for my work visa (which was, much to my relief, successfully granted).

One could spend hours looking at all the frescoes that had been freshly repainted in 1998, wondering about the devotion of the painters willing to risk their lives to paint the insides of the cupolas. Using my smattering of Slovenian vocabulary, I managed to purchase a small portrait of St. Saba, the patron saint of the Serbian branch of the Orthodox Church and the saint after whom Cleveland’s Serbian Orthodox church is named, from the caretaker who did not seem to understand much Slovene himself. We were, however, able to establish, after he inquired whether I was Slovenian myself (a not-infrequent occurrence), that his brother is a doctor in Melbourne.

Later in the week we visited the Fransiscan church in the city center (the pink one in one of my earlier posts where mass is held a staggering eight times on Sundays, many of the services accompanied by live music with an organist and/or choir) to learn about the history of Catholic church music in Slovenian and sing a hymn or two with the musicologist who is choir director there. With only five guys out of 17 in the group, I offered to help round out the tenor part, which with the exception of a couple of notes, was perfectly in my range.

THE ALTERNATIVE SIDE OF THINGS

Going to Metelkova Mesto, literally it’s own city within Ljubljana, was stepping into a radically different world from the religious side of life.

Recognized in a recent article in The New York Times travel section,

http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/travel/03next.html?scp=1&sq=metelkova&st=nyt

the city housed in the former army barracks is a hotbed of activism, art and music of all kinds and the center of all walks of alternative life in the city, with multiple different clubs catering to specific kinds of music or clientele; here you find the gay and lesbian clubs, and even one catering exclusively to people with disabilities. In the summer months at leas–as a later nocturnal exploration proved–people hang out in the open spaces drinking and smoking all manner of intoxicants as much as they do inside the clubs.

Here, the commentary on life in a post-socialist country is a little more blatant.

After tacking a brief nap, I was ready to hit the town, explore a little. It’s been 15 years since I was in Europe and never in these parts, so I was keen to start exploring, see why this has been named one of the most beautiful places in Europe. One of my initial impressions of the city, however, was auditory; from my apartment, you can hear the church bells chiming every 15 mins, reminding me that is a radically different soundscape from Indonesia where the call to prayer dominates the soundscape fives times a day. Even as I write, the sounds of the bells are reverberating in the air, though apparently not all churches are tuned to the same sense of time. Apparently there is a move to stop them in the city center as some folks find them too intrusive in their lives.

So the first night I walked with Sandy, my roommate and the leader of the program, into the city center and the area known as “old Ljubljana,” age clearly marked by narrow, cobblestone streets and buildings in various states of repair, ranging from those beautifully maintained to the most decrepit with paint and plaster pealing off the facades or pigeons nesting in the attic compartments.

The “old Ljubljana” area straddles the Ljubljanica, the river running through town. In the summer time, the area is very active with a long string of cafes, restaurants and bars (I am not yet clear on the precise difference between these establishments as all seem to serve a little bit of everything) lining the river, the best seats in town looking directly over it. This is the place to be and to be seen, people hang out for hours in the mild evening hours or leisurely stroll around snacking on a gelato.

The second night I went with a Canadian student in the program who has Slovenian background where we had an adventure of the different kind and ran into a bachelor’s party on the way. With some already inebriated guys barring passage in the street, we were encouraged to sign a petition for Jica and pay 1 euro each to help endorse the drinking and marriage ahead. A couple of hours later, sitting by the river, we heard the same war cry and noticed his friends putting him into the river in a small inflatable row boat where he made his way back down the river accompanied by the cheers and jeers of his friends.

Having heard and already read much about the local brew produced right here in Ljubljana, I was keen to try some for myself. Although very refreshing, it was a little light for my tastes. The next evening, I stepped things up and tried the competition; Zlatorag from the Slovenian town of Lasko. Much tastier, in my opinion. The rivalry between the two, however, is keen; the waiter at lunch today tried his best to convince me I really didn’t want this inferior product and should choose the local. I am beginning to wonder what it means that many of the first Slovenian words I have mastered relate to ordering beer; the different brands, light vs dark etc. Here’s where I should be able to insert a suitably appetizing picture of the beer product, but somehow I failed to capture that and you will have to make do with scenery for the meantime. Going on the first few days where I have managed to make it to the center everyday to hang out at these cafes, I think my stay here shall be very pleasant indeed.