When Paul the Apostle, probably after strolling through the Acropolis just like any other tourist, climbed the neighbouring Areopagus hill to explain to the Athenians the errors of polytheism and to bring them closer to faith in the One and Only God, the Almighty Father, the temples on the Acropolis were still standing in their full glory, and the city at the foot of both the hills basked in the deep shadow of the monumental Parthenon and in the classical harmony that spread down from the heights.
Had Paul at that time, after clambering up Areopagus, seen stretching before him this scene of endless concrete structures, without one single green twig to provide some coolness from the burning summer heat and bring some humanity into the life of the Athenians, perhaps his speech would have turned to subjects of designing the public environment and town planning. Because, does that greyish relief that reaches as far as the eye can see hold anything of beauty; is there anything beautiful in the plucked monuments on the neighbouring hill? Who would want to live there, unless forced by dire necessity?
Edi Rama:
Edi Rama is a painter. What is more, he was a secondary-school art teacher when he became Mayor of Tirana in 2000. This was only ten years after the fall of the paranoid communist regime, and aggressive post-communist consumerism was in full swing in Albania. Today Tirana, especially its suburbs, looks just like someone who had never been to the city might imagine it. Bad news has always travelled faster and reached further. Morning in the courtyard of a hyper-modern hotel in the city centre still begins at five in the morning with the screeching of a cock.
According to Rama, in 2000 Tirana was a city populated by people who had to live there. There was not one single inhabitant of Tirana who wanted to live there because they had chosen to. So the artist Rama decided to change his city making use of what he knew best: colours! He began to paint the faceless grey facades, which the communist regime had kept that way on purpose to discourage any diversity or individuality. Speaking for TED, he gave a fantastic talk on the subject.
In a sea of mediocrity, corruption, rejection of principles or, even worse, in a world where principles no longer exist, a man with an idea and a bucket of paint can bring hope to people who lost it long ago, and build up human happiness. In a world of this kind, we think, as we wander through the remains of the classical Agora and the probable site of the cell in which he had drunk his poison, Socrates’s death loses its futility, and the dreams of Plato, his pupil, that the state should be governed by philosophers because they think about human happiness, while all politicians care about is their own gain, still stand a chance. Today Edi Rama is Prime Minister of Albania. His eleven years at the head of Tirana will long be remembered!
The harmony of Antiquity has not been living in Athens for a long time. Today, on the graffiti-streaked facades, on streets and pavements that have barely been swept, through the lives of thousands of immigrants who endlessly roam the streets day and night seeking for any kind of work, or sit around in groups in front of small shops selling mobile phones and soap or in front of their miniature stands with tomatoes and peppers, and through hundreds of young, hyped-up and unemployed Greeks, there is a battle taking place between Order and Disorder.
Things do not stand well for the Order we are used to, that is as clear as day, just as it is clear that this flood of wretched people who have left behind their fields and towns in the East will breach our own shores, too. Has Order slowly, through the centuries that rushed past, been losing ground to its antonym? From Phidias’s temple of Beauty and Harmony to the graffiti of today – is Disorder the true state of man, and Order no more than a historical glitch?
Since Disorder has been winning battles for centuries, people are building well-protected fortresses around the artefacts of Order, which are for now keeping Disorder at bay outside their walls. The top picture shows the small but firm and unusually sexy little fort in Sv. Vid near Metković (south east Croatian town), which keeps remains from Narona, and the bottom picture shows the ultra-modern Museum of the Acropolis, both built as the guardians of Order say: In situ.
Outside these fortresses, on the city market, Order and Disorder do not clash. The world seen through the eyes of the market has not essentially changed since the time of Pericles.
In memoriam:
I dedicate this blog to Professor Janko Paravić, literary translator and simultaneous interpreter and jazz lover, who left us suddenly this August. Although he was official interpreter for all the Croatian presidents and heard many conversations, including, of course, those held at delicate times, he never repeated one single word although many people, thirsty for scandal, besieged him with propositions. He was a gentleman in the true sense of the word! In this hot summer he enthusiastically helped with the translation of the Spanish blog. I am sorry that we did not spend more time together.
From Athens to the Black Sea and further on
The story above led to a spirited discussion about which is stronger, Order or Disorder, and is the Parthenon proof of order or disorder. Unfortunately, the participants sent their comments in emails, which makes their contributions private. I don’t know why everyone refrains from commenting on the blog itself. In short, one school thinks that the spreading of Disorder after the perfection and harmony of Antiquity is obvious. They say: “There is a theory in quantum physics (and quantum physics itself is no more than a theory, closer to philosophy that to physics) which says that the passage of time does not change things from chaos to a world of order, but the opposite – from a world of order to chaos. Evidence for this is the whole and broken drinking glass. Once it has been broken, it cannot be returned to its original state of order, which is also proof that time cannot run backwards. Although the passage of time is a relative concept because time curves together with space so that, as old Einstein would say, past, present and future are only an illusion."
Of course, when we consider the Acropolis and the pearls of classical architecture on the one hand, and on the other the quarrel emanating from the trashed facades in the form of mostly angry political messages, things seem to be clear and the decadence of Order into Disorder is obvious.
However, should one not think about what the slaves would have to say in this discussion, and this is the view taken by the other school. In the golden age of Pericles every household in Athens had five or six slaves, a total of eighty thousand. Without them none of the monuments that we marvel at today would have been built. Consequently, it is not very likely that they would agree, in this discussion, with the theory that the time in which they were enslaved and in which they built the artefacts of antique harmony was a time of order. In saying this we have transformed slavery from an economic into a moral fact, which makes the graffiti somewhat less irritating. Or does it?
Alexandria / Alexandroupoli
Obviously, the small town was named Alexandria after the famous Macedonian who was born just several hundred kilometres away, in the village of Pella. The irresistible charm of long-distance motorcycle travel also lies in making only a rough plan of your route: you move east towards the Black Sea, and it will end as it does… Many people are not ready to accept this kind of uncertainty, thinking that planning details makes up the skeleton of a journey which prevents the programme from falling apart. Countless times this theory has shown itself to be completely wrong. And so today, although I was riding roughly northwards from Athens, and then eastwards, without any plans about where to spend the night because you never know how things will turn out, I ended up, now for the third time, in an elegant hotel in Alexandroupoli in which, it turned out, I was already regarded as an old guest cordially welcomed at the reception and given an immense discount without any negotiations. We had stayed here for the first time eight years ago, tired and dusty, on our return from Syria and Lebanon. The second time was on the way back from Iran; and each time we were happy that – barely able to move and exhausted from the long ride – we could sink into a bed as soft as a cloud. And so, neither is the World boundlessly immense nor are the possibilities endless: sooner or later one passes along the same route.
Dawn in Alexandroupoli:
Here we are, on the Black sea! Varna
A long, tiring and not especially picturesque ride along what were more or less tracks to Varna. We passed through Edirne in Turkey, the minarets of whose mosque are higher than those of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, and which boasts several bridges.
In Bulgaria the small towns that sprouted in the endless wheat fields still look rather worn out; even when bathed in sunlight the bleak soviet greyness prevails.
And so, finally, we reached the Black Sea. Varna is the most important Bulgarian port and tourist centre. Only a road separates the enormous port from the endless sandy beach.
Throughout history the city changed masters like socks. After an unsuccessful Crusade against the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century it was taken by the Ottomans. Then came the Russians, then the English and the French, then the Russians again, who made a gift of it to Bulgaria in 1878. In WWII came the Germans. It was a city on the front lines and a key site in the Crimean War, the First Balkan War and in WWI. In 1944 it was conquered by the Russians again and given to the Bulgarians, together with the Russian system, which they kept up with the help of local sycophants right until the fall of the Berlin War.
Varna has a vast pedestrian zone and broad squares. It seems that the Bulgarian style of town planning is not to skimp on the area given over to public use. Plovdiv, for example, has the largest pedestrian zone in the world. Why is this so? Is it the result of fifty years of minimalizing the importance of private ownership, allowing towns to generously cede their surfaces for public use? If this is so, then here, too, facts have been transformed from economic to moral. Because who could claim today that this result of the Soviet regime is not good for everyone. Except those, of course, who had property taken away from them!
We ride along the shore of the Black Sea towards Constanta in Romania, down a road leading through the Golden Sands Resort not far from Varna. Hundreds of hotels are scattered along the yellow beach, merry-go-rounds, thousands of kiosks, kebabs, souvlaki, pizzas, but – there is no smoke. The season is over, only the brave have remained. When the season is in full swing, this does not seem to me like a place where you can rest in peace and quiet.
Following the coastline we ride through completely uninspiring villages. A weight can be felt in the air, pressed down by poverty and hopelessness.
Constanta
Before entering the town we pass through the ghostly, empty Mangalia summer resort. It was built according to the same formula, but here tourists dispersed long ago because the temperature is two to three degree lower than in Bulgaria. Russia is nearby.
The washed-out facades and number of rundown houses, but without a single graffito, is proportional to the distance from Berlin in the eastward direction. Order / Disorder? But the town is clean. Every so often cleaners in ungainly uniforms come along, with their tools. I ask a waitress what life in Constanta is like? So, so, she answers, it is hard. And adds: "Winter is coming!"
The photo shows the Constanta casino, ceremoniously opened in 1910 by Crown Prince Ferdinand. This fantastic building is truly falling apart, although it is the symbol of the town. It immediately gained great popularity among the smart set and playboys. The Russian imperial family stayed there already in 1914. Neither Prince Ferdinand, nor Nicholas II Romanov, nor many of the wounded who were moved there during WWI when the casino was temporarily turned into a military hospital, survived. Neither has the casino, despite several attempts!
I've had enough! I'm going to the Carpathians
One by one, the plans for this biker journey adapted to new circumstances. The original plan had been to go to Istanbul, then along the southern shore of the Black Sea to the Turkish port of Trabzon, there to board a ship to Sochi in Russia. Supposedly, the ship sails according to a timetable, but the mooring lines are untied when it fills up with cargo and passengers. Then my son Marko broke in, saying: “Come with me, I’ve got work to do in Tirana and then in Athens…” One doesn’t say no to an invitation of that kind, so we arrange a meeting in Sv. Vid near Metković for eel and frog stew. We don’t travel together because he is coming from another direction. Next day there is no room for me in the hotel in Durazzo where Marko is staying, all the rooms have been booked, there is a conference on. OK, I’ll go to Tirana on my own, it’s only 40 km. Marko spends next day at the conference, I wander through Tirana. Then I find out that Marko will be staying for another day, I feel bored waiting so I go to Athens alone. Marko turns up next day so we spend two more nights together, when his other engagement begins. I leave for Varna… On the way I find out that motorists cannot get a transit visa for Moldavia on the border, because these are only issued at the airport in the capital city. In that case, Odessa can only be reached through Ukraine, up to Kiev and then southwards. And then there is Crimea, which can no longer be entered from Ukraine… And so, one by one, the plans fell through. That is why I am going to the small town of Sebes in the Carpathians where the Transalpina begins, every biker’s dream. You’re not a biker if you have during your career not ridden through Stelvio Pass in the Dolomites, where countless serpentines lead the road up the 2,700 metres, and the Transalpina that will bring you up to 2,100 metres.
From Sebes to Belgrade
