A Tale of Two Balkan Cities

 

A Tale of Two Balkan Cities

 

1 November, Friday

I sat alone for an hour in the lobby at Hotel Central Club Sofia; a place renowned for its alcoholic drinks consisting of spirits mixed with other ingredients, such as fruit juice or cream. I asked the woman who was working as a waitress in the cocktail bar when I met her (that much is true) to fix me a Tequila Mockingbird. She hadn’t a clue what I was on about, obviously, but said I looked very thirsty and insisted that I had a large bottle of chilled Shumensko (Bulgaria’s finest ale) and a packet of Detelina’s (Bulgaria’s finest nuts).

 

2 November, Saturday

A lot of airport things happened at Sofia airport but all too dull to waste time writing about. Airport procedures, especially for short journeys, are barely worth sharpening a pencil for, except to say that the plane to transport me to Belgrade was a dinky one with propellers.

I took a photograph of my nearest propeller whilst in the air and my phone’s digital trickery tomfoolery made it look worryingly motionless and broken. Brace! Brace!

This cosy little aircraft was an A72, named after the road in Scotland that connects Hamilton in South Lanarkshire with Galashiels in the Borders region.

 

3 November, Sunday

In warm sunshine I sought the celebrated Pobednik; a monument in the highest corner of Belgrade’s fortress, commemorating Serbia's victories over Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian occupiers. Crafted in 1913, it’s a standing bronze nude male holding a falcon and a sword (as symbols of peace and war) on a lofty pedestal. He faces forwards pointing his obvious but meagre genitalia towards the confluence of the rivers Sava and Dunav (Дунав, meaning ‘Danube’). Originally erected in the city centre, he was moved to this out-of-the-way location following complaints from women’s organisations and the clergy about the sticky-out-ness of his cheeky boy bits.

 

4 November, Monday

The shabby but stylish Drinka Kafana near the back door of the House of the National Assembly was much more welcoming than any of the neo-classical, Art Deco and brutalist structures I’d seen dominating the city centre. Old Serbian songs crackled on a local radio station as I ordered coffee and a glass of water in a combination of Serbian, Bulgarian and Dystopian. A simple ‘dupli espresso’ would have sufficed as water always automatically comes free in Belgrade coffee houses. No need for pleases or thank-yous as, in a place where almost everybody is friendly, words of politeness are superfluous.

 

5 November, Tuesday

The Turtle Boat cruised downstream along the Dunav, passing places already familiar to me from previous days’ wanderings, before circumnavigating Great War Island. There was no visible sign of enormous energy at the point where the Sava river joins her big sister but I sensed an eerie presence. Swooping flocks of birds knew that the confluence would confuse fish, making them easy pickings.

The Sava, flowing closer to the city, provided views of Belgrade’s impressive buildings ancient and modern and the six bridges that spanned her. The sun’s dying rays enhancing the vistas compelled me to take a million photographs.

 

6 November, Wednesday

They come in threes… Trump won in America, Leeds United lost at Millwall, and I hit sixty-seven (years, not Trump voters or Millwall fans).

Birthday celebrations revolved around the Museum of Yugoslavia (including the graves of Marshall Tito and his fourth femme), the Museum of Naïve and Marginal Art boasting the blue biro scribble work of Goran Stojčetović, being trapped in a hundred-year-old lift with no emergency button, and a chinwag about genocide with Boško the antique seller. 

Lashings of dark local ale with Balkan music and dancing at the Black Turtle Bar rounded off a wonderful day and trip.

 

7 November, Thursday

‘Twas airport day again and I moaned the Leavin’ Belgrade Blues. Occasionally, this 100 words per day regulation restricts my literary flow so sometime soon I’ll describe on a separate sheet some of the lovely and/or interesting people and places I encountered there.

Back at Hotel Central Club Sofia I negotiated long and hard with the brutalist receptionist until my request for electric lighting in my room was approved. After twenty minutes there was a knock on my door and a ten-year-old girl handed me a single lightbulb (four would have been better). The predominantly black wallpaper didn’t help much.

 

8 November, Friday

Wandering aimlessly through back streets, I chanced upon a shop displaying the book Sofia Urban Art, written by daughter Rose’s Bulgarian twin friends Nikolay and Tsvetan Bizev.  

Rose shared an apartment with them whilst studying at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and they had taken her under their protective wings. I met them on one of my many visits there.

My love for Maastricht made me realise how much I enjoyed mainland Europe, eventually prompting me to leave England. By sheer coincidence, I made Bulgaria my home.

I resolved to one day see Nikolay and Tsvetan’s spray cans in action.   

 

9 November, Saturday

The day comprised of little more than a three-hour bus journey and my arrival home to a mediocre welcome from the resident menagerie. So here’s more about yesterday…

After a basic but tasty Bosnian restaurant experience with new friend Raya, I dawdled in a hotel direction. Discovering the lovely bar Bohème I stepped inside briefly, just to be sociable. Complementing the barman on the smoke-free atmosphere didn’t go well. I said ‘nyama tsigari’ (няма цигари, meaning ‘there are no cigarettes’), but he thought I had said ‘nyama tsigani’ (няма цигани, meaning ‘there are no gypsies’). Either way, he was very proud of his achievement.

 

10 November, Sunday

Sad to be washing away Belgrade grime, I removed all dirty clothes from my backpack and switched on the machine at number five. Other settings are available but never used. It’s so rare that I have enough dirty silks to justify doing a ‘silks’ wash.

It rained all day so I ventured out only to visit Kaufland to buy food. With everything on the shelves labelled in Bulgarian the operation seemed simple but lacked the excitement of shopping in Serbian language supermarkets.

The return to cooking and washing pots was hard to swallow but my healthy homemade meal certainly wasn’t. 

 

11 November, Monday

A month ago, when I made my appointment for the summer to winter car tyres changeover, delightful Desislava booked me in for eleven o’clock on the eleventh of November. She probably thought I was being a cocky when I told her I had a way of remembering and she didn’t need to write it down for me.

I met the Essex Contingent in the petrol station café nearby. Lovely coffee, lovely fresh flaky banitsa and lovely company but we had to sit inside for the first time since April.

This winter thing… is it going to go on much longer?

 

12 November, Tuesday

It rained all day. It rained all day yesterday too. Western Bulgaria had snow.

A problem each winter is that all eight cats, accustomed to living predominantly in beautiful wide open spaces that surround this house, suddenly decide they’ll stay indoors the bulk of the time to keep warm and dry and to hiss and fight with each other and drive me nuts. However, the effort of constantly cleaning floors clarted with mud brought in on wet paws helps me to keep warm. The dogs (who also love to clart) become as irritated as I do by such feline ferocity.

 

13 November, Wednesday

Copy and paste… it rained all day. So I stayed in bed with coffee and a book until after 11:00 am at which point I transferred myself, my coffee and my book to the settee. I looked out of the window occasionally to check that outside was still there. It was but it was very soggy.

All this sitting about means that the pain in my knee has all but gone, but it seems to have relocated to my brain.

I’m assured by experts that better weather’s on its way. Two dry days and I’ll be as right as rain.

 

14 November, Thursday

Long time ago in Veliko Tarnovo, the Kartala district was a Turkish hillside fortification.  It’s no longer a district since the council renamed it the Kartala Quarter. With high rise apartment blocks as far as the Nazar Boncuk can see, green spaces for sitting or playing, and countless posh places for spending money, it reminds me of the Costa Brava but without sea or English voices.

I spent money in its new coffee café which was gorgeous apart from the hideous music. Sneaky modern songwriters get their verse to rhyme by ending every line with ‘a piece of my ass’.

 

15 November, Friday

Today was Friday and the sky was black, but it wasn’t Black Friday. However, consumerism blesses us with brainwashing experts’ constant reminders that it’s coming soon. The Bulgarian name is Cheren Petuk (Черен Петък).

It’s new here. When I arrived the country was still uncontaminated by it. And what’s worse is it’s spreading. They now talk constantly of special deals during Black Friday Month.

Being the curmudgeonly old git that I am, I have always referred to November as Black Month and never imagined that getting a fiver off an appointment with a dental hygienist would bring joy.

Roll on Rainbow Tuesday!

 

---

 

Image:

Looking down a Belgrade boulevard towards the magnificent Temple of Saint Sava, the seventy-sixth largest church in the world.

 

Photographic Evidence:

It’s all here! Just click on the link.

Belgrade

 

Part Two:

Eight out of Ten Bulgarians