what you get here

This is not a blog which opines on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers to muse about our social endeavours.
So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

The Bucegi mountains - the range I see from the front balcony of my mountain house - are almost 120 kms from Bucharest and cannot normally be seen from the capital but some extraordinary weather conditions allowed this pic to be taken from the top of the Intercontinental Hotel in late Feb 2020

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Rhodope charm again


I had hoped to be reporting on the great trip to Smolyian and Kardjali at the beginning of the week in the borderland with Greece – but was a bit knocked today by the cowboy behaviour of my Romanian village mayor. Perhaps its the just rewards for the positive Bulgarian postings I have been making! I was nicely received (as always) in the Smolyian Gallery on Monday - which has a very large space (3 floors) and a great collection but almost no money for maintenance. My colleague, Belin (who was leading the workshop) is an architect by training; now an academic; and was, in the late 1990s, a Deputy Minister for Regional development. He explained for me the ambitious agenda of the socialist government in the 1970s when they merged 3 villages there (as they did elsewhere) and created urban systems which are now tottering. He also suggested a possible reason for the very diffferent fates of villages in post-socialist Bulgaria and Romania. He suggests that land ownership was more completely collectivised in Bulgaria than in Romania – and that there was therefore no base left in Bulgarian villages post-1989 for the sort of self-sufficiency which still survives for example in my village amongst the old.
A marvellous journey on Tuesday through and over the mountains to Kardjali – quite amazing to see the isolated homesteads clinging so high up to the mountainsides! And all the minarets – most new. Kardjali has all the bustle and townscape of Turkish town. I was able, with some difficulty, to locate the art gallery – rather small and pathetic despite some great paintings - including the great Atanas Mihov (above)
and this delightful Stefan Ivanov.

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