Bulgaria - it's our oil!

I may be in the (very misty) Carpathian mountains at the moment but have to keep an eye on the other parts of the Balkan configuration….My German contacts tells me that Bulgaria's close energy ties to Russia are causing concern among European officials

They worry Moscow will use Sofia as a beachhead for its interests and drive a wedge between EU member states.…..Bulgaria is an easy target for the Kremlin because the country is almost entirely dependent on energy imports from Russia to survive. One third of its economic output is either directly or indirectly controlled by Moscow, the German reports indicate. Bulgaria's governing coalition -- of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms party, which represents the country's Turkish minority -- is considered closely aligned with Moscow. It includes an illustrious group of former Communist Party members, intelligence service workers and Bulgarian oligarchs who do business with Russian President Vladimir Putin's minions.

One of the country's most influential business magnates is banker Tzvetan Vassilev -- whose KTB bank handles much of the money flowing from Moscow into state-controlled Bulgarian industry, particularly the energy sector.

Last week, various media reported the contents of a secret letter from Russian energy giant Gazprom to the Economics Ministry in Sofia. In the letter, the Russian state-owned company allegedly provided ministry officials with draft formulations for a law relating to the South Stream pipeline, a project that will carry Russian gas through Bulgaria to Austria. Much to the chagrin of the European Commission, the multibillion euro project is being led by Gazprom.

The government in Sofia has snubbed Brussels with the draft law because it redefines the Bulgarian part of the pipeline as a simple "gas grid interconnection" rather than a full-fledged pipeline in an effort to circumvent EU competition regulations….. The European Commission has been highly critical of the South Stream project, noting among other things that it violates EU energy market rules -- anti-monopoly regulations passed in 2009 aim to prevent producers from owning pipelines. In another alleged violation of EU policy, Bulgaria is also moving to exclude third-party suppliers from using the pipeline. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a fellow Social Democrat, is kept fully abreast of the Kremlin's strategy by his staff. He met this month with Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev, an independent politician who is fighting openly with his government because he wants to keep Bulgaria on a course toward the West.Plevneliev warned of dangerous developments across the entire region. He fears Putin could destabilize Bulgaria and the Balkans and seek to bring it under its sphere of influence.

Gerhard Schröder is currently employed by a Gazprom subsidiary and made a trip to Sofia this week to provide support for the Bulgarian Socialists in the European election.

I only asked!

Revenons aux moutons ecossais!! Back to Scotland - and the September referendum. My favourite Scottish reading - the Scottish Review - expressed it so well today -

What possible reason could anyone have for not being prepared to say they intended to vote No in the referendum?
I suspect the answer lies in what may be seen as the success of the Yes campaign. Every observer and commentator agrees that the Yes campaigners have monopolised almost all the energy, enthusiasm, excitement and commitment that the independence referendum has created.
So far at least it has proved difficult to make people feel passionate about the reasonable idea of Better Together.
More importantly still, the Yes campaign has successfully created an atmosphere in which a largely unspoken assumption has emerged that an intention to vote No may be seen as somehow anti-Scottish or unpatriotic. 

In his poem 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel', our writer (Sir) Walter Scott famously asked:
'Breathes there the man, with soul so dead/
Who never to himself hath said/
This is my own, my native land!'

 If there is, the poet tells us, such a man

'shall go down/

To the vile dust from whence he sprung,/

Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung'. 

It would be absurd to suggest that intending No voters consign themselves to the poet's second category, but there is no denying that the Yes campaign has been very successful in implying that anyone who is really positive about Scotland's future, who thinks progressively, and who rejects Thatcherism and its legacy, is bound to favour independence. 

Westminster made a huge mistake in accepting the Electoral Commission's recommended wording of the referendum question: 'Should Scotland be an independent country?' Mr Salmond and the SNP must have found it hard to believe their luck. Vote Yes for independence – with all the positive gloss and power and appeal that word enjoys.

How many countries are there that are not independent? And in any event, with its guaranteed independent religious, legal and educational systems, plus a parliament in Edinburgh, isn't Scotland already more or less an independent country? Vote No for what? Nothing positive. No hint of preserving a 300-year union. Just Yes for, or No against, independence.

After all what’s the alternative? Subordination? Subservience? Dependency? Even subjugation and enslavement?
 Is it really so surprising that No voters may prefer to remain tight-lipped about how they intend to mark their ballot?

Smart and slow Books?

I’ve begun to realise that the little Guide or briefing which I’ve been working on for the past few days (called, for the moment, "Encountering Romania") is rather unique with its various distinctive features -

• It focuses on the aspects of a country you normally find pushed to a few back pages of the conventional travel guides – literature, art and history
• It includes blogsites – 16 of them – with the hyperlinks and some excerpts    
• It gives a lot of hyperlinks to material about Romanian society and culture – for example 20 travelogues from the last couple of decades (that’s one a year); to lists of several hundred novels; to sites which will give data and examples of a couple of hundred Romanian painters; and to several photographic sites

The "Blue Guides" and Pallas Guides do offer cultural feasts - but don’t have the hyperlinks..  

A year or so ago I picked up in one of the second-hand bookshops in Bucharest some volumes of a 1960s "Collection Literaire" - French schoolbook texts by Lagarde and Michard. They cover most cultural forms and include excerpts and photos. Quite exquisite....but is there a modern equivalent?   

They used to be called Reference books. But in even their traditional (ie non web-based) form they were generally available only in the local language ie not for foreigners - or at least only for that minority of visitors who spoke the language fairly fluently.......

And what does one call this new format – with its “embedded hyperlinks”? 
“EBook with embedded links” is a bit of a mouthful! Also sounds a bit warlike! 

My first idea was “smart” book - but that seems to be a technical device like a tablet….

and this EC initiative doesn’t actually tell me very much.

I blogged a few months back about “slow books” – perhaps I should patent a product called “slow, smart books”????

What market for promiscuous web-books?

It’s a damp, dreich day – enough to drive a man to whisky, rakia or palinka….But ideal weather for completing the next draft of my little cultural guide on Romania – which currently bears the rather cumbersome title of Encountering Romania – some cultural links

The version which I've just uploaded is 60 pages – but my own text is pretty modest, with 40 pages consisting of 3 annexes….

Starting with a list of blogs may be unusual – but what easier way to get a sense of a country than seeing it through the eyes of people (whether ex-pat or local) who has been sufficiently enthused about a country that they themselves then try to catch and convey some impressions? I’ve identified 16 blogs in English - an equal number coming from Romanians and ex-pats – I know of no other such list…

Indeed think I can reasonably claim that there is no better guide in the English language to material about Romanian culture than this little guide - 20 travelogues from the last couple of decades (that’s one a year); links to lists of several hundred novels; and to sites which will give data, for example, on a couple of hundred Romanian painters! 
Indeed I wonder why there aren't more such efforts????? 

What I might call "promiscuous" webbooks with links and downloads - "promiscuous" in the sense of covering a variety of the subjects you should be interested in when visiting a country. They used to be called Reference books - but in even their traditional form they were generally available only in the local language ie not for foreigners......
A new business model perhaps...........??? 

One of the new blogs I found when compiling the update for that section– Bucharest lounge (its been going 2 years) - uses the superb word “karmalicious” to describe Bucharest!

At the start of guide, I listed 16 ways of getting to know a country and its people – but appeared to forget about an important way of entering a country’s soul – simply walking around and chatting to people (although I did include “conversations” as one of the 16 methods!). The best of our travel writers use this method but my focus on bookshops and art galleries tends to limit such encounters…..

And I love my house in the Carpathian mountains so much – with its library of books, music and amazing views – that I am not tempted even into medieval Brasov all that often to explore - which is very reprehensible given that I have glorious Transylvania right on my doorstep.

As one of my daughters is coming next month and likes exploring and hill-walking, I have to find a guide for her. I immediately found a walking tour which actually includes my own village – but it is one which leaves from London (!) and ties her down to schedules. 

This excerpt on my section of the googlebook “The Mountains of Romania” gives a good sense of the area – the Piatra Craiaului is a dramatic range which I view from my rear terrace. “The most dramatic ridge-walk of Romania and one of the most enjoyable of Europe” is praise indeed from a British mountaineer!

From my front balcony I view the Bucegi range….and it’s that which figures most often as my blog masthead….

On a stroll yesterday to see a new house being built in the traditional style, I was sad to see three "weeping" houses in the neighbourhood.....

And to see the more casual methods being used in contemporary constructions methods here. 
The second of my snaps shows the traditional cut for the external beams of a traditional village building. The next photo the cut for beams being used for the the new house beside it.

16 ways to get to know Romania

One of my daughters will be visiting me at the end of next month for the first time and has asked for some advance reading. A “know-it-all” father is a real bore but fortunately Hilary is an experienced traveller with a mind of her own.

Romania is not one of the most visited countries in the world! Go to any of the huge sections in a European bookshop which deal with travel (I think the Germans probably have the largest – they are big travellers!) and you will be lucky to find even there more than a couple of titles.

But good material about Romania can be found in other sections and places. Indeed I have been surprised, as I explored the net, by the amount of material which has been written about the country – except that I shouldn’t be surprised….it’s a big country after all - 20-odd million people – a lot of whom are (and have been) very highly educated. Indeed you could argue that the Romanian intellectual is so clever as to be almost off the planet!

So I have prepared a little guide on what’s available, building on the ten posts I did at the turn of the year – and recognizing that there are different ways to find out about a country. And don’t worry – my notes in the Guide are only 20 pages – the rest are annexes for dipping into! I have tried to ensure proper attribution for these - they are all taken from the internet so I assume they are not "intellectual property"!! But I am writing a proper "acknowledgements" section......

If you are a reasonably conscientious visitor - relying on the written word for your exploration of Romania - you will start looking at -

• Travel guides
• Travelogues – which can be divided into the serious or the (sadly increasing number of) tongue-in-cheek type
• histories - which deal with what are considered to be the key events in the shaping of a nation
• novels;
• social and cultural histories (including jokes);
• memoirs and diaries
• blogs
• journals

To these eight genres which use words can be added an equal number of other, generally non-verbal ways of trying to enter the spirit of a country -

• television, films and plays
• photographs 
• buildings
• conversations and encounters
• friendships
• music
• paintings and caricatures
• food and wine

That’s actually 16 different perspectives – no wonder we get confused! My little Guide tries to show what's available in a lot (but not all) of these categories....And I realise I haven't said anything about "walking and exploring" - probably the most important thing!!!
Anyway the link is of the initial draft - as you can imagine, I have found it a very stimulating project and am already hard at work on an update..................

Toma Socolescu - an architect who made his mark

On a trip a couple of days ago to nearby Brasov, I visited the new Humanitas bookshop for the first time – and also the Carteresti bookshop nearby – both housed in typical marvellous old Saxon buildings with which the heart of the City is so generously endowed.

I was lucky to find in the latter a 250 page book on the works of one of the very distinctive school of Romanian architects of the first part of the 20^th century which made (and still make) Romanian provincial towns visually so interesting. Toma Socolescu’s work adorns much of Ploiesti where he was born on July 20, 1883 to a family of architects (grandfather, father and uncle were all architects). 

He studied at the "Peter and Paul" (now National College "Ion Luca Caragiale") and at the University of Architecture and Urbanism "Ion Mincu" of Bucharest where Ion Mincu himself was a teacher. He specialized in civil and religious architecture and built many of the buildings of Ploiesti eg

• Between 1924 and 1932 - his old high school building which houses, the current National College "Ion Luca Caragiale".
• Between 1924 and 1933 (opening date) - Palace of Culture in Ploiesti , the former Palace of Justice. (A very good article about the story of building the palace can be found on the website Republic of Ploiesti )
• Between 1929 and 1935 - Ploiesti Central Market - probably the most famous building in Ploiesti recognized at European level.
• Between 1923 and 1937 - St. John the Baptist - an imposing building with its tower 60 meters high.
• Between 1912 and 1936 - Church of St. Panteleimon , located on Democracy, no. 71.

Thomas T. Socolescu was actively involved in the political life of the interwar period:

• Mayor of Ploiesti, during December 1919 - March 1920
• Councillor of the City, from March 1926 - March 1929
• Prefect in Prahova, during April 1931 - June 1932
• Mayor of Păuleştiului, during 1937 - 1940

Besides the profession of architect and his political career, Thomas Socolescu was involved in the cultural life of Ploiesti. He helped found the Library Nicolae Iorga and Prahova County Museum of Art "Ion Ionescu-Quintus" .

During the communist period he was persecuted by the Security (as were other important families in Romania). His buildings clearly flaunted style and wealth which offended ideological principles. 
The family propertywas confiscated and he himself was evicted from his home at PAULESTI; and was forced to move to Bucharest where he worked until the age of 74 years.

He died on October 16, 1960, in Bucharest. A doctor who is passionate about things related to Prahova County has a marvellous page on him - and his works. Use the google translate facility and you will get the info - but the pics are great!

I have just discovered the English version of a great French travelogue about Romania which first appeared in 1996 - The Romanian Rhapsody; an overlooked corner of Europe by Dominique Fernandez with photos by Ferrante Ferranti (2000). Googlelibrary gives extensive excerpts - which give a sense of what some of us experienced when we first ventured 20 years ago into the country. The guy writes with passion....and the photos are great.......

The Courage of Women

By sheer coincidence, I have been reading these last few days two stunning books which turned out to have strong similarities in their focus on parts of rural Europe before and during the second-world war. 
The underlying message of both is courage and commitment.

The first – Eleni - was published in 1983 and is the story of a Greek woman in a mountain village who was executed by Communist guerrillas in August 1948, one year to the day before the end of the civil war in Greece which killed 158,000 people. 
Eleni was not a freedom fighter, a terrorist or a secret agent – she was a mother who had been trying to save her children. The tale it tells is the most powerful I have ever read about those times – and places – unsparing in its analysis of the behaviour of individuals in exceptional times.

The book was written by her son Nicolas Gage (who arrived in America at the age of 9 and eventually took up a position as foreign correspondent in Athens from where he was able to conduct the interviews for the book which). 
Of course much of the detail he offers is “invented” – the book straddles the space between biography and novel and is all the more powerful for that reason. 
The only equivalent book I know for its sheer power is Oriana Fallaci’s "A Man". Of course, I knew about the bitter struggle in the 1940s for the soul of Greece but have never actually read anything like this before about it.   

The other book – A Wild Herb Soup; the life of a French countrywoman - had been lying unread in the mountain house for almost a year; was published in 1991 and is the story of a French woman who lived in a small village in the mountains near the French border with Italy. Her village is thoroughly agricultural, and for most of her life she knows nothing but the farm.

Her life was harsh - the environment unforgiving. Her mother is struck by lightening at the age of 23 as she works in the fields, and her unread and patriarchal father must raise his large family alone. Emilie develops into an independent thinker, remarkable given her surroundings. While education is scoffed at by the farmers books become an early passion for Emilie.
Her intelligence is recognized by the prefecture, and her teachers persuade her father to accept a scholarship so that Emilie can continue her education into what we would call "high school". Emilie's family seems to be singled out by the gods, as death claims nearly all of her brothers and sisters save one -- and the one sister is committed to an institution. The sister's husband is irresponsible drunk, and so Emilie and her father take care of four young ones.
As Emilie continues her education with aspirations of becoming a teacher, her mind continues to grow. The Great War ends any trust she has in the government or religion. She realizes the injustice of everything -- the millions of farmhands dying for the sake of aristocrats in Paris. She remembers a conversation with her brother (who died on the last day of the Great War), one that had a profound impact: "You'd see," he'd tell me, "All that stuff the teacher told us, about patriotism and glory -- well, it's nothing but nonsense and lies. He had no right to have us sing 'Wave little flag'. What does it mean, anyway! Can you tell me?" I did not know. I did not see. 

And so she becomes a pacifist – the man who became her husband was already an anarchist. The book is a rare testimony to such people. It has encouraged me to pull off my shelves the unread book on the subject - Anarchist Seeds Underneath the Snow.

Each book gives an amazing sense of what it was like to live in such mountainous villages a hundred years ago – with their poverty, cold, gossip but occasional solidarity and beauty. These days we romanticise such places but the spirit of these extraordinary people needs constant celebration….I know of only one review of each book – both books deserve so much more although Eleni has been made into a film; and A Wild Herb Soup did become a European best-seller in the 1990s, thanks to its American translator.  

Living, as I now do in summer months in such a (Transylvanian) village, I feel a particular affection as expressed in this 2 year-old post

One of the important themes in Geert Mak’s biography of a village is the encroachment of the outside world on tradition and solidarity – initially through roads; then labour-saving devices; money replacing mutuality; then television; european legal requirements for livestock; and, finally, urbanites buying and/or building houses in the village. Other books also cover this theme - eg Blacker's Along the Enchanted Way(Transylvania); Alastair McIntosh's Soil and Soul; and Robin Jenkins' Road to Alto - an account of peasants, capitalists and the soil in the mountains of souther portugal (1979). Alto in Portugal was a self-sufficient economy, with a stable, sustainable agricultural pattern practiced for centuries. There were no major disparities, and people helped each other during the occasional drought. The community didn’t need many external inputs. This utopia could have gone on forever, but for the coming of a six-kilometre tarred road. The farmers moved to cash crops and the cash economy; soon, the village was not producing enough food for itself and became dependent on external seeds, fertilisers, finance. The middlemen gained the most from this conversion. The old socio-economic structure, where everyone had their place and nothing much ever changed, no longer exists. In its place there is a system in which any land becomes increasingly seen as a potential source of profit. The old stability and predictability gone forever, to be replaced by the competitiveness and the mentality of a gold rush. All because of six kilometres of tarred road 

The pace of change has been slower in this village where I stay; few outsiders like me - although my old neighbour pointed out yesterday (as we were returning with 4 hens he had bought in a nearby town of Rasnov) a house which a Frenchman is apparently restoring. 

My acceptance in the village is helped, I’m sure, by my friendship with old Viciu; and by the fact that I live without ostentation (having kept the traditional features of the house – and driving a 15 year-old locally-produced car!!) But you have to get used to a lot of questions – about where you are going; what you are doing; how much things cost you – and comments about your sneezing and nocturnal movements! That’s why I laughed out loud at certain sections of Mak's book which cover these exactly similar features – “people usually proffered unasked explanations for any action that was out of the ordinary, for anything that could appear not quite normal. You explained why you were walking round behind your neighbour’s meadow – “it’s more out of the wind there”   

The painting is one from my collection - an unknown Bulgarian by an unknown painter.