Another Day in Kazanlak (26-Aug-2006)

Not that I knew it before I got here, but it turns out Kazanlak is famous for a Thracian tomb, discovered just before the end of WWII while some locals were digging into a hill to make a bombshelter. This was where my Esperanto hosts took me today. I even had a guided tour through the tomb - in Esperanto. I was taken through the tomb and everything that I was supposed to notice was pointed out to me. Many times better than I'd ever thought any guided tour could be.



The entrance to the tomb. It's actually quite modern and high-tech just inside the entrance.




And a couple of snaps of the murals adorning the burial chamber. These were painted in about the 4th century BC. Certainly the best example of this sort of thing in Bulgaria. And apparently some quite remarkable artwork for the period anywhere.

We had a chat with the women selling postcards and entry tickets. They were interested in the fact that I basically had an Esperanto tour-guide. Of course by the time we left I had them saying dankon and gis revido.

Next was the ethnographic museum. Similar to ones I had seen in Macedonia but again the Esperantists pointed out things that I otherwise wouldn't have noticed.

Part of the museum is a merchants house from the 1800's and one can sit up on the balcony overlooking the superb garden and sample some rose liqueur and rose jam. A nice experience. The woman who brought the liqueur up also knew some Esperanto - her father was an Esperantist and her sister is an active Esperantist.



Here's the view of the garden from the balcony as we were enjoying a beautiful day, sipping rose liqueur. Glorious is the word. They knew how to live in the old days. Well, the ones on the balcony did. The peasants slaving away tending the garden probably wouldn't have enjoyed the sun quite so much.

Last stop was the city museum where the woman who showed people the room with the Thracian treasures had also studied Esperanto. Interestingly, these people weren't known to my Esperanto hosts. They just mentioned it because they heard us speaking Esperanto.

Well, I seem to have harped on about the Esperantists a bit, but it's a nice change from having to actually explain what Esperanto is as often happens in Australia.

Looks like the restaurant next to the ethnographic museum has rooms for about $20 per night. I might check into there for my last night here tomorrow.

Esperanto Excursion to Shipka (25-Aug-2006)

In the morning we headed of to Shipka.

We caught a bus from Kazanlak which was heading into the hills. (Please note, Kazanlak wasn't going anywhere; it was the bus heading into the hills.) Here's the sort of uniform bus conductrices wear out there.



Somehow we ended up catching the same bus three times on this particular morning. I'm not sure how.

Near the village of Shipka there is a pretty impressive church which was actually built to commemorate some battle between the Russians/Bulgarians and the Turks. I think though there is some controversy as the Russians may have helped out back then but they were unwelcome when they hung around during communism. Anyway, a strange sight as it's quite out of the way and not really used as a church. It really is a war memorial, though quite an unexpected sight out in the countyside.







Here's the church from the back, the front and from a distance. It's in superb nick. I suspect that it's quite a famous spot in Bulgaria, not that anyone outside of Bulgaria would have heard of it - well Russians perhaps.

Next on the agenda was a visit to a Thracian tomb which was only discovered two years ago. I also got quite a bit of a history lesson in both places but it was all presented so well that it's a lesson in how well guided tours can work in a group of one. The knowledge of these Esperantists is remarkable.

On the way to the tomb the four of us had to walk quite a way in the countryside.



Here are my Esperantist friends marching away to the Esperanto songs that we were singing.

I had my first experience of singing Esperanto songs. I must say that the atmosphere was superb. I really enjoyed myself.

In the evening we went to a great restaurant on a hill overlooking the town. Though at night there's not that much to see as it's hardly the city of lights.

Superb evening and a great advertisement for Esperanto. Second day in town and I'm having tea with a young girl who's just started learning Esperanto, the town Orthodox priest and several other interesting people, one of whom threw in the fact that the last time the police searched her house for subversive literature was in 1986.

Here I am with some of the Kazanlak Esperantists.







And of course any Esperanto dinner should end with an Esperanto song. Well, if you happen to know one, and you happen to have the words in your pocket. This song was probably pretty well known in its day.



As promised I had a go at starting the girl on Esperanto and it seemed to work. Whether she'll have the incentive to keep it up in the modern world is another question. She's also leaning French at a French school in Plovdiv and we know how hard it is to keep them on the farm after they've seen Paree.

Whatever Esperanto is, it is also a window into a culture that existed vibrantly here in eastern Europe for many years. They don't just speak Esperanto, they also sing Esperanto songs. It's almost like being a Welsh speaker and going to Patagonia and speaking Welsh. This possibly represents the last vestiges of a dying culture. This doesn't mean that Esperanto is dying. It's not Esperanto that's dying but that perculiarly post-war communist culture that nurtured Esperanto by making it one of the few ways that people could have contact with other countries. English wasn't really an option back then for them. They had Esperanto clubs, went on outings together, went camping, sang songs, and went to international congresses - well those that weren't on the blacklist of the secret police did anyway. Svoboda told us that during an international congress in Varna, the police made her father report to them every day to stop him from attending.

On the way back down the hill, in the darkness, Svoboda, always joking no matter what, laughed as she pointed out the absurdity of the fact that over by the water park they were lighting up the sky with one of those huge searchlights, yet the town hadn't even bothered to light the street where we were walking.

Off to Kazanlak

Up at ten to six to get to the train to Kazanlak.

Is the English-speaking world that much more musical than the rest of the world?! How come where-ever you go the radio is full of English pop-songs? Well it's not true everywhere but it certainly seems to be in Bulgaria. Not that there was much Australian music to be heard on Australian radio 40 years ago - hence the local content laws. It must be a phase that most countries go through.

Wow, the $55 taxi fare from the day before yesterday turned out to be $4.10 in the other direction. If I'd known, I would have gone down to the station yesterday and looked for the bloke that tried to rip me off.

The railway station is huge and full of dodgy characters that look like they're out to rip someone off, or they might live there permanently. I suspect these are the gypsies that give the rest of them a bad name. If Bulgaria's supposed to be in the EEC next year, surely they need to clean the place up a bit. Honestly, I have never seen such a bunch of shady characters.

Here's my Bulgarian host seeing me off on the train to Kazanlak




The train to Kazanlak is a bit on the dilapidated side but the compartment's nice and roomy.

Kazanlak. Town in the middle of nowhere but full of cafes and lots of girls walking around with a great sense of what to wear. Great pedestrian mall.



The square looks quite quiet and I suppose it is as all the activity is in all the streets leading off it which are are pedestrian. Great atmosphere.



A photo can't begin to convey the atmosphere of the place. Especially as a lot of the ambience has to do with the people walking up and down the street.

The local Esperantists are lovely.Just met the two that met me at the train station so far but they and very nice and very intelligent.

I'm staying in the best hotel in town. Its a bit under AU$60 per night and really is pretty classy. The best hotel I've been in by far this trip. The great advantage of going to smaller cities. It feels like a palace after what I've been through.

Went for a wander around town. They even have a casino. Just slots, video poker and an automatic roulette table. Won $60 at one of the vdeo poker games. I'd be tempted to play more but I can't believe with the pay-table it has that it's a random deal.

Met up with the Esperantists again in the evening. We headed off to church where the old bloke in the black vestments (the local priest of course), gave me a bit of a shock by coming up to me and saying 'Ho, vi estas de Tasmanio - la insulo de Auxstralio'. Yes, he's a very good Esperantist. Now known to me as Pastro Pablo.

While I was in church two young blokes walked in in t-shirt and jeans. I thought they were going to rob the place or something. Well, they ended up getting up onto the lecturn in the middle of the church but instead of running out the door with the book they found there, they started chanting. Then from behind the altar a priest started singing and they sang back-up. Quite remarkable. It turned out these two are students in a seminary. I liked it when in the middle of the chanting one of the students took the sun-glasses off the other's head. He rather rakishly had been wearing them back-to-front in church.



Yes, the priest at the back is an Esperantist and the two young fellows in jeans are student priests.

It seemed that this was in the middle of a service or something but my Esperantist said we'd better say good-bye so we wandered up to the lecturn where the Esperantist priest was singing, got his attention and waved good-bye. Also a rather strange experience.

Later on the other Esperantists turned up, including a very good-looking girl. She's not an Esperantist yet but we'll have a go at her tomorrow.

Sarajevo, Nis, Skopje are big cities so you expect some night-life but the small size of Kazanlak and the huge amount of pedestrian streets and cafes is mind-boggling. This town might be the best yet.

Five kilometres from here, just after the war, they found the remains of some important Thracian city. But very soon afterwards a dam was built and the city was submerged. Well, apparently there's a plan to reconstruct the city, or part of it, on some sort of high-tech island in the middle of the man-made lake. Well, not really an island. They want to build a wall around the Thracian city and pump out the water to create something for which I'm not sure there's a name it's so unusual. I'm predicting that if that plan goes ahead, Kazanlak will become famous.

Day in Sofia

Went for a walk in the park.

Parks are the same all over the poorer parts of eastern Europe - nice and big but really tatty. Grass is crappy looking. Trees are boring and of course there's even a bit of a litter problem in the parks - especially along the lesser used areas.

Happened to spot a tennis court; turned out to be a tennis centre. They've got seven coaches and a head coach who just organises coaching. His coaches are away playing in tournaments but he's organised a coach for me from somewhere. He'll be here in 15 minutes. Trouble is the surface is clay and my clothes are probably going to get ruined.



English speaking but I suppose you have to expect that from tennis.

I still seem to be able to play tennis a bit. Quite a nice venue with a nice bar overlooking the courts.



My tennis coach finished by extolling the virtues of Bulgarian archeological sites and monasteries etc. I wanted to tell him to be a proper coach - from my experience in Australia - you have to tell jokes and talk about the week-end's footie.



Nice spot for a beer. Lots of activity planting new vegetation. Obviously making a fair bit of an effort to get things looking good. This will be a great city again eventually.

Huge square near my bus stop back to my current home (until tomorrow morning). Here's a typical soviet style monument which isn't faring too well under capitalism. I suppose it won't be here much longer. They've already blown up the monument to some major communist figure.



The square is however a huge meeting-place for the young.



I even got to kick a foot-bag around for half an hour with an appropriately hippie looking bunch of people. They definitely need some more practice though.

The main street which runs passed the square towards Mount Vitosha. Appropriately named Vitosha Street. A few weeks ago the mayor declared it to be a pedestrian mall - though the with trams running down the middle, it's not quite as pedestrian as it should be.

Bus to Bulgaria

Bus to Bulgaria. The young Pom I chatted to at the bus station had been to Albania before Macedonia and he reckoned he'd never been so happy to leave a country. I'll have to move it even higher on my list of countries to go to.

On the way to Sofia there were more rolling hills, valleys, babbling brooks... Lovely.

And at least here there's a proper border - that's what traveling's all about. Passport control - all that sort of stuff out of the old spy movies. Thet's when you know you've had the proper travel experience.

Interesting taxi trip from the bus-station. I couldn't find a meter in the taxi but finally I saw one but it was just about impossible to read. We hadn't got very far and the meter was already showing over 35 dollars! Thinking something must be wrong I rang the Esperantist and he reckoned the cost to his place wouldn't even be ten Lev! The fare ended up being over 55 dollars! Anyway, first he dropped me off in the middle of some block and said he couldn't find the address. I told him I thought something was wrong and refused to pay till my Esperantist said everything was ok, So now he puts my stuff into the taxi after I'd rung the Esperantist and arranged to meet him at such and such a place. Again he drops me off and when I again refused to pay he suddenly knew where the bloke was waiting. Anyway, my 70 year old Esperantist told him that he was trying to rip me off - but he'd take his details and if he came with him he'd pay him. When we got to his place his mate was there waiting and although he's 74 he looks like he wouldn't put up with crap from anyone. We ended up settling on a ten dollar fare. These two Bulgarians declared the taxi-driver to be a gypsy. So my gypsy cab-driver was a real gypsy.

Here's the Esperantist's friend who saved me from the robber taxi-driver.



The Esperantist is a former Mig and helicopter pilot, and his mate graduated from the same flying school in the same year and used to fly Tanzanian politicians around. Quite interesting. And no joke - he has an African accent when he speaks English.


What I remember from 7 years ago is still there. A boulevard of absolutely magnificent buildings. Paris but without the crowds.


The Russian cathedral which so impressed me years ago when I was here. Absolutely eerie when you approach it on a deserted Sunday morning with the choir singing inside.

Apparently this is where the king used to hang out when Bulgaria still had one. The current bloke in line to the throne apparently wants his house back - I can't really see it happening.


And yet another impressive building nearby. This time I think it's the parliament.

Bus Back to Skopje

Bus to Skopje.

Here are a couple of rather interesting and unusual pics from the airport in Ohrid...







The first seems to imply that guns are ok - just declare than them and you're ok.

The second poster seems to show a party and someone firing into the air. I'm going to have to find out from an Esperantist in Macedonia to be sure, but it seems to be a community service announcement against random firing of guns at weddings etc. (Due to the alarmingly high number of people that get hit when the bullet comes down).

Here's a pic I took of one of the streets back down to the water from the church. Very pleasant.



Ended up with a really good taxi driver in Ohrid. Well, he had a bit of a bluff. He said he could use the meter but that I shouldn't complain if the price was higher than he offered. I knocked him down by 50 denars and took the offer but out of curiosity I should have gone for the meter.

He did a great job getting me on the three o'clock bus just as it was leaving but I'm not sure whether I got ripped off there either. I suppose I should give him the benefit of the doubt.

Bus trip was terribly cramped as usual.

I ended up at the same hotel that I complained about before. It might be crap but it's reasonably cheap and it's close to the bus station and the centre of town.

Eight in the evening and 33 degrees.

I think I'm ready for a new country.

My Russian Esperantist traveling companion has already moved on - she caught a plane from Ohrid to Moscow this morning. Some problem back home apparently. Or perhaps she just got sick of me - no that couldn't be it surely...

Ohrid

View as I was walking into town.



Met up with the one of the local Esperantists. She has rooms to let at her home but seeing all the rooms have en suite and she has 8 them, one could say that she has a small hotel.

The view from the front garden where the paying customers were was glorious. One could sit there all day having a beer just looking out over the water. Definitely the best spot of the trip. And a hundred times better than my hotel.



I eventually met another couple of Esperantists. One of these is my first hot-pants wearing Esperantist. She works in a bar so it was a nice touch to wander into a bar and have someone greet you with saluton.



I couldn't resist it, Just bought myself yet another t-shirt. Sitting having a beer in front of a pretty impressive church overlooking the lake. Bit touristy but at least they all seem to ba locals or at least Slavs. Well it all comes down the the fact that if they humour me and speak to me in Macedonian they're cool and so are the souvenirs, but if they insist on English then it loses its attraction.

Ohrid even has an ancient amphitheatre ...



... and a pretty impressive looking castle.



Sat outside this picturesque church having a beer. That's what Australia needs - more churches with accompanying bar.



No doubt about it, Ohrid is a great spot.

(What about my complaints from yesterday? The mosquitoes aren't so bad if you turn off the light and close the window, the rubbish is collected each day, I haven't heard anything from the other side of the lake after yesterday and it's so warm there's no need for a blanket.)

'bye to Prilep

Prilep is on a plain, a long way from the sea and the temperature's over 40 degrees - in fact it's one of the hottest days of the year for them so it's a scorcher. Wish I could just sit back in Prilep for another couple of days and relax and have a few drinks in one of their many cafes, but I have to move on.

Three of the youth group came to see us off at the bus station. Very pleasant Esperantists they are too. As long as we have the likes of them Esperanto deserves to survive.



The bus broke down three times on the way to Ohrid. We ended up having to walk the last couple of hundred metres and I suppose it would have been more if there hadn't been a huge long down-hill stretch which we were able to coast down engine-less for several minutes.

We arrived at night so I haven't seen anything of the town but so far I'm not impressed. The hotelroom is a bit run-down, they have weird Soviet style blankets with some strange diamond-shaped hole in the middle of the sheet, the sheet over the mattress is too short.

I asked for directions into town and the way turned out to be through a badly lit wooded area so it was an impossible task, the litter for a change seems to be in or around the litter bins but they don't seem to have been emptied for a while, the amusement park on the other side of the lake is so loud I can hear it from here, and there are mosquitoes in my room - but apart from that Ohrid is great.

I'm hoping it looks better during the day. Oh, and I phoned one of the local Esperantists and she doesn't seem to speak Esperanto at all and said I'd have to speak English. Does that mean English is ok but Bulgarian (which is mutually comprehensible with Macedonian) is not? I'm obviously not impressed so far.

I'd better reserve all further judgement till the morning - if the mosquitoes haven't sucked me dry.

Krushevo

First thing in the morning we took a bus to Krushevo.





Krushevo is a village of about 5 or 6 thousand people on the slopes of one of the mountains that surround Prilep.

Apparently it's the highest village in the Balkans. Apart from that it's famous for having been an independent state for ten days in 1903, before the Turks came in and suppressed the independance movement. In a way it was the start of the modern Macedonian state.

Apart from the beauy of the alpine landscape Krushevo has five museums including a rather impressive and unusual memorial to the Krushevo Manifesto in the shape of a mace.



Inside the memorial. All very minimalistic with special symbolism that probably needs to be pointed out by a local. Well it was but I didn't really understand it properly. It's unusual enough and plain enough that it's quite impressive.



Our friendly caretaker sliding closed the door to the museum.



Our local Esperantist from Prilep got the caretaker to open up the museum with the strange shape for us after which we went on a long treck with some local historian to the other museums.

Even Krushevo with it's 5 or 6000 people has a vibrant cafe culture to rival that of Hobart.





The only church that wasn't destroyed by the Turks - they thought it was a Vlach (Romanian) church and didn't want to have to fight them too.



It's fortunate that the Turks left it alone as it would have burnt pretty well considering the whole interior is carved wood. Apparently one of the largest such carved alters in existence.



Traditonal photo of Esperanto excursion. Note the Esperanto pennant in front. Also note the huge key I'm holding. The caretaker even has a special handbag that he carries it home in. He says it would otherwise make a mess of his pocket.

Nunnery

We started the day by walking up to the top of one of the nearby peaks on top of which are the ruins of some famous fortress - well, famous amongst Slavs anyhow.

Also nearby were ancient graves that had been hewn out of the rock. I thought I'd try one for size.



Pretty uncomfortable though - I wouldn't want to be dead for long in one of these.

This being Macedonia, on the way back down round the other side, we came across one of those monasteries built into the mountain-side.





There was a young woman nun outside (she was rather pretty but I didn't think I should be asking for a close-up) ....



Our Macedonian asked whether we could get permission to view the nunnery side. She said she'd go and ask but the answer was no. Not surprising seeing I had shorts on. That's the last thing the nuns need - to see my legs. Or maybe mother superior had spotted me trying on a fig-leaf for size and realised we hadn't come to pray...