Battered Chicken Bites

I hadn’t had access to typing the blog for the past number of days, so I spent much of the next day catching up. I’ve never considered myself much of a writer, but I’ve enjoyed re-reading some of these adventures and those from Greece, plus people have written me also enjoying the blog, so it’s definitely been worth the effort.

I received a message from Elena that the interview I did for Macedonian TV had shown up on YouTube. Now all I have to do is wait for it to go viral and I can retire.

Bob and I went out in the early afternoon. He’s had continual problems with the phone he bought and SIM cards, etc., and was hoping to solve them. I wanted to go visit the mosque (dzumaya). It was a warm but pleasant day, again. Many of the streets we’ve walked on in Plovdiv were of stone, and in patterns similar to what Sandra & I saw in Ioannina (I’ve described this in earlier posts from our Greek trip).

Bob still couldn’t get the phone to work, so, he called his friends in Pestani from the post office, and then we went to eat. We chose a restaurant which advertised itself as a Greek restaurant. It had a short menu written in chalk in Greek outside the door, just as many do in Greece. But the decor, the food, the waiters, and the language inside was all Bulgarian. Maybe the owner was Greek.

The mosque was restored in 2008 and looks practically new. There was no one outside or inside to talk with. It’s spacious and struck me as a refuge from the busy-ness of the city. I preferred it to the overly ornamented Rila church, for example. The floating domes also reminded me of the Agia Sophia in Istanbul, although of course on a much smaller scale.

We returned to Larry’s and he had come back from Sofia with Margaret. whom I hadn’t seen for many years. It was great to see her and we started a conversation to catch up that was interrupted and restarted over the next 24 hours.

The four of us drove out to Vojvodinovo to see Ilyana Bozanova, a dance instructor who has come to the US frequently. She and Lyuben had visited Sandra and me at our Seattle home, and I had spent time with them on other visits as well. She showed us the renovated cultural center in the town. She teaches kids folk dance and singing and has built up a good-sized group there. The town has a large tax base of companies, so they were able to get a grant for the hall. It’s still small, but any support for the arts is a success.

We walked across the street to a restaurant for dinner. The day before was Ilyana’s name-day, and it’s traditional for the celebrant to treat friends. She insisted on doing this, despite our protests; you just have to go along with this. The menu had the usual wonderful English translations of items, similar in form and effect to what Sandra & I had catalogued on our trips to Greece.

We talked about her family and folk dance. Her son is in the US with his girlfriend on some kind of program that purportedly sets up young Bulgarians to work during the summer for international companies in different countries, to experience the culture and learn a bit of the language. There had been problems, and my feeling was that someone in Bulgaria is making money off of these bright students, sometimes leaving them in untenable situations in the allegedly host country. Larry and Margaret’s friends had helped out, but what about others that weren’t so lucky?

Larry asked Ilyana about the rise of recreational folk dance groups in Bulgaria that he’d recently experienced in Stara Zagora and read about online. There are at least 8 of these in Plovdiv alone. About 20 to 40 youngish Bulgarians get together once a week and dance to records, just Bulgarian dances. They make tee shirts of their club’s names, and get together a few times a year with other clubs for fun. This sounds an awful lot like how I and so many other Americans got started in international dance in the US, but it’s just Bulgarian. I don’t know if this is some kind of revival, a new social network, a reaction to the rigidity of the communist-era folk groups, a niche market, or what. But it’s growing, whatever it is.

We drove Ilyana home to her apartment, and she invited us up. We met her husband, who is a crane operator. He’s gotten temporarily laid off due to economics, and is remodeling their kitchen by himself. Everyone does the best they can.

We talked and watched a Bulgarian folklore channel. Various music groups make short videos, while the location is usually some kind of meadow, or folky house, with singers and dancers in stylized movements. It’s pretty odd for me, and I can’t imagine it interesting younger folks, but apparently people watch these, at home and even in bars. Lyuben and Tanya just made one with Tsvety and Bryndyn. I think I’m missing something here…

After serving us her homemade raspberry jam over ice cream and rakia, Ilyana finally bid us good night. She is a good soul, working hard with kids, doing 3 people’s jobs, creating groups and a place for young folks to gather and talk as well as have fun and learn about some aspects of their culture. I’m glad things are going better for her.

Plovdiv

Bob and I said goodbye to Steve and Jatila before going to bed after our long Leb i Vino day. They had to leave early in the morning to go back to Skopje, visit friends, go shopping, and catch a plane. I enjoyed our time together.

The next morning, Bob and I had breakfast with Elena and Jane. First they took us to a house-museum. It was once owned by a wealthy Greek and was purportedly the largest home in the Balkans at that time. It has been restored and is frequented by tourists. We discussed possible Islamic and/or Turkish influences on the home–original, or added in during the restoration. This subject had also come up yesterday related to music, as part of our marathon discussion.

After one last walk-through, we said goodbye and squeezed into Bob’s Mazda. We were heading for Plovdiv, where Larry and Margaret have a home in an apartment building next to my old kaval teacher, Professor Lyuben Dossev and his wife, Tanya Dosseva, a well-known singer. Their children had gotten married (Lyuben’s daughter had spent time in the states) and now had a son, so the families had become intertwined. Larry comes here a couple of times a year. We wanted to see the new place and visit.

Bob and I were in no rush, so we decided to forego the main highways and take a scenic southern route through Goce Delcev to Dospat, and then up through the western Rodopes to Plovdiv. We tried a very small road out of Melnik, but it looked like it turned into a goat trail, so we backed out and tried to find the main highway to the Goce Delcev cutoff. While making a left turn to head toward an entrance ramp, we were almost hit by a BMW who had come out of nowhere and cut us off. A big bruiser with a skinhead cut walked over and started yelling at Bob, who was trying to apologize, even though we had both looked in both directions before he turned. Then this guy reaches in the car window and slaps Bob on the face! Bob was physically ok, but this was a big shock to both of us. The big bully got into his car and drove off after a few more words. Bob and I talked about this on and off the rest of the day. I think he was more affected by this than he let on; he was assaulted, after all. It was the most negative thing that has happened to us or anyone else on this trip.

We did shake off this incident somewhat, and tried to enjoy the ride. The southern Pirin mountains aren’t as imposing as the northern variants, but it was still a nice ride. Again, a history-filled area, with towns named after revolutionary heroes who fought the Ottoman occupation. The road we were on is supposedly the road on whicdh jane Sandanski was assassinated. We stopped for a break in Goce Delcev, home of the musician Roumen Shopov, who now lives in the Bay Area, but decided to continue.

Eventually we reached Dospat, a dusty small town, where we stopped in a tiny coffee bar. There was a muslim family there, and in Dospat and other towns in this region we saw mosques but no churches (we could have just missed the latter). We went north from Dospat, up into the mountains, where the air was cooler. We passed by dammed lakes, where people fished, sailed, or rode bikes. No towns, although some small, rather pathetic resort villages. I have a feeling this area will get developed over the next 10 years as some kind of getaway.

After emerging from the mountains (nothing dramatic, more like big hills), it was pretty much a grind to Plovdiv. I haven’t been here for 35 years, and it’s grown immensely. One of the first signs that things had changed was the graffiti-covered streetcar. We found Larry’s home more by divine intervention than anything else (Bob’s phone still  wasn’t working). It was great to see him again. I’ve seen him on this trip more than I’ve seen him in 20 years, and Bob and I haven’t ever spent this much time together.

After we got settled, Larry took us next door to visit Lyuben’s family. Tanya greeted us first, and we had rakia and some meat and palichinki (pancakes). Then Lyuben got home, and we did everything all over again. He’s looking good, and is now the vice-rector at the Academy of Music. His English is also much better, despite his protestations to the contrary.

They had to go to bed early due to a music video filming the next day, so we took leave and went out to dinner. Larry had visited Leb i Vino a few days before we did, so discussed our thoughts about their approach to music, their hopes and plans, and larger issues that our conversations had raised for us. The restaurant we ate in had music videos playing on the TV, some sexually provocative, and this was my 2nd hit on the changes in the city.

We picked up this conversation the next morning, and then expanded it to our own interests and goals in this folklore area and our lives in general. I really enjoyed this conversation, one I can’t share with too many people due to either lack of interest in the topic, or lack of commitment, or not having a shared experience over decades. So, it was lively and stimulating.

We got hungry eventually and went out to eat, still talking. Here was my third hit on how Plovdiv (and, by extension, Bulgaria) has changed since I last visited: we soon hit a pedestrian mall which could have been any European pedestrian mall catering to international tourists. You only had to change the language. Larry said that the half-life of the stores was pretty short, and I can’t imagine them getting much business.

We had lunch in a small place near Old Town run by an Armenian, cafeteria, “point-and-eat” style. It was good; I had moussaka just to see what it was like. They used some kind of green squash instead of eggplant, and no meat. Larry had work to do for the folk music and dance seminar he’s running here which begins in a few days. So, he left, and Bob and I waslked into and around old town.

Plovdiv has been inhabited a long time, all the way back to the Bronze Age. It was known as Philipopolis after being conquered by Philip the 2nd. The old town feels more real than Bansko’s, is small, has some ruins in it, including a large amphitgheater with a beautiful backdrop, and restored houses and museums, most of which were closed as it was Monday. I wasn’t much into museums anyway, so that was fine by me. It was nice to walk around the tree-shaded streets again. There were a few vendors around, trying to sell their wares in a desultory kind of way. Bob & I took our time and wended our way back to the apratment.

A few hours later it was time to eat, of course, so the three of us joined Lyuben, Tanya, and Larry’s son Brydyn and Lyuben’s daughter Tsvety along with Alek for an outdoor dinner. I ended up ordering two trout dinners by mistake, but managed to eat them both with a little help from Brydyn. We talked about kavals, authenticity, and joked around. (Lyuben thinks some who plays authentic music is someone who had not studied in school and who has not heard other musics on the radio, just learned from their family, village, or acquaintances. He thinks it’s no longer possible for anyone to have this label, except possibly for older folks in viillages (kind of like the elders Elena and Jane were interviewing and learning from)). Lyuben had played a kaval at the Smithsonian collected around 1893. He made some recordings on it for the museum. To my surprise, he said it was in 3 pieces, like the current modern version; I’d been expecting an instrument that old would still be in a single piece, like the current Macedonian ones.

The two women left early to take Alek to bed, and we returned to Larry’s and had more rakia, discussed the policies of various Balkan countries toward their Jewish populations during WW2 and currently, and anything else that surfaced. It was a full day, but I didn’t feel tired in the least; I must be having a very relaxed time.

Leb i Vino

We left early the next morning in order to get Bob to the bust station. He decided to rent a car from Sofia and meet us in Melnik. That would give him and me the flexibility to get to Plovdiv via a southern route, while Steve and Jatila went back to Skopje to catch their flight home.

We saw him off then did some errands for the phone, money and food. I won’t go into detail on phone stuff, but it’s both convenient and a pain here in the Balkans, the latter especially if you call out of country. But the strength of signal is way better than any provider in the states; you could get 5 bars in Galicnik, of all places. If I were to come back and spend time in one place, I’d probably get a SIM card and some time and use it on my by-then-unlocked-iPhone. As it is, I’ve been using my iPhone for e-mail and news feeds when I get a wireless signal, and to check plane times, etc. on my calendar, plus making notes, etc.

OK, so we drove to Melnik uneventfully. As we arrived, Steve called Elena from the group Leb i Vino. This “group” is just her and her husband, Jane, and they work in Melnik with traditional music, dance, and arts. I’d been in touch with them several years ago, when they bought my first two Macedonian books, and we’ve stayed in contact. They’re doing a lot of very good research with elders in the Pirin as well as other areas of Macedonia. They recently put on a kemane (old upright bowed instrument) symposium, and got about 15 of the remaining players from Bulgaria and Macedonia (Greeks tried to come, but illness took over) to show up for a few days. They were also working with Dimitar Uzunski in Delcevo, the fellow who helped us at Mitko’s funeral. Their website is http://lebivino.com

We rendezvoused with Elena and she took us to their workshop, which is right on the corner of the main intersection in town, part of the municipal building. It’s a small room, with a loom, icons and other paintings they are working on, and instruments. When we walked in, Jane was playing kemane; he’s taking lessons. We talked instruments for a little while, via Elena’s very good English. Then we out to look for a hotel. The first two were full (unusual here), but the third, the old Turkish prison, had room. Afterward getting set up, we went to a restaurant owned by a friend of theirs to eat.

We spent the next 14 hours straight with them. I can divide that time into four parts: this lunch, Bob’s reappearance, music-making and converation in their studio, and their mini-show at a restaurant up the road toward the Rozen monastery. For this first part, we talked about their work, how they define “authenticity”, how they make their living, common musical and folklore interests, and many other topics.

Around 4 pm,Bob drove slowly by and we all yelled at him to catch his attention. He came in and sat down for some food and another 3 hours of conversation. We continued on the topics we had started. We moved to their studio, where Elena, Jane, and I played some music together for fun, with me playing tambura and then kaval. I really like the music of this region, as arranged in this manner. They’ve gotten a lot of their material from “babi” (grandmothers) and other elders. Some of the lyrics and songs they’ve collected have given them information they’ve applied for some educated guesses on local history. We discussed the pros and cons of recording their interactions with the elders (video and/or sound).

After 8 hours total of talking, etc., they got ready for their show and we drove up the new EU-funded road to the restaurant. Melnik has a long history, and was once one of the main towns on the Balkan trade routes. It is now a protected town, with a population of 150 residents and “thousands of tourists”. There are old ruins to see, and even pyramids (named “peppers”) similar to Stob’s. At the restaurant, we waited for the bus tour group to show up. Bob, Steve, Jatila, and I went next door to the newly-opened wine cellar and sampled some local vintages, all red.

The tour bus still hadn’t shown up by 10:00, so we ordered dinner and talked some more. Around 11:30 things finally started happening. Leb i Vino did a nice short show, and we danced with them a little. They wore traditional costumes that Elena had made. For her costume, she used dyes from local roots, and did all the sewing herself.

They got positive feedback from the diners, some of whom were from Thessaloniki and also spoke Macedonian. I tried out my Greek, but they stayed in Macedonian or reverted to English. My sense is that people enjoy their show, and they are pretty much the only thing going in Melnik in that area. They get good support from the town and the restaurants, are on a local calendar each year, and perform in different places in Europe. They also have a young son named Alexander. Still, it’s hard to be an artist anywhere.

We drove back to their studio at 1:30 am. I was in their car, and we discussed the heavy metal groups that we liked. This was seen as perfectly normal, no contradiction with their main interest whatsoever (nor mine!). Back at their place, Jatila bought some things from them we all finished up the conversation. I offered to sell some of their CDs on my web site on consignment. They agreed, so I will work up some pages for them when I get back. I had given them the Dragi set and the Zeljo CD as gifts. We decided to meet at 9:30 for breakfast the next morning.

Although we disagreed about a number of things over the course of 14 hours of conversation and time together, we did that amicably, I felt, and I do hope they get support to continue their quest to bring older, more authentic cultural experiences to adults and especially children in their area. It’s a monumental task, and they are currently doing it with little support. An EU grant would help, as would a third person (at least) to do recording, but I don’t see them having the time or prioritizing those things to make them happen. I really enjoyed our day together, and there were also many areas of convergence of values and ideas that we celebrated. I hope we can spend time together again.