Category Archives: 2025 Cruise up the Danube River

Bulgaria’s Gulag

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, Authoritarianism, Concentration Camps

 

“Gulag” was a word used to describe the brutal concentration camps of Soviet Russia.

I listened to a fascinating CBC Ideas Podcast entitled “Voices of a Silenced history: Inside Bulgaria’s Gulag,” on a topic dear to my heart. The topic was the efforts of those in power to try to drive history to ignore what they don’t like and twist the truth to paint themselves in a better light.  This is a common occurrence. Currently this is what the American conservative movement is doing vigorously, thanks to the endorsements of the president of that country, who has many truths about himself that he wants to keep hidden.

 

Lilia Topouzova is a documentary filmmaker and a historian at the University of Toronto whose work is focused on the afterlives of political violence and the relationship between remembering and forgetting. As it happens, CBC Ideas aired this story just before we were travelling to Bulgaria. My ears perked up when I heard that.

 

Topouzova felt she was the perfect person to tell this story, since she was born and raised in Bulgaria. This is how she introduced herself:

 

“In order to get anyone to tell you a story, you need to encounter the person. You need to see the person. So when you’re making a film in Eastern Europe, or when you’re conducting research as a scholar in Eastern Europe, you need to be able to A, drink, B, smoke, and C, eat a lot.

And so, you know, maybe as a younger person, I was good at all these three things. But more than anything, I think it’s about also letting people know who you are.”

 

Lilia Topouzova has some amazing standards. She said that she never records anything with people until she has spent at least a year with them. She was also very sensitive to people who had experienced trauma, and many of the people she interviewed had definitely experienced trauma.

 

For 2 decades Topouzova has been studying things the Bulgarian establishment wants to keep in the dark.  They do not want any light shone upon them, much like many American conservatives do not want to hear anything about racism in their perfect country, nor exploitation of labour, and much like many Canadians don’t want to hear anything about what happened in Canada’s Residential Schools, at least no more than they have already heard, which is too much. Power does not like to hear anything that might besmirch its reputation. That is why to them ignorance is sacred in the words of James Baldwin.

 

Topouzova has been studying something I never heard of before, the Bulgarian Gulag, which according to Nahlah Ayed, the CBC host of Ideas, is “a history that has been deliberately silenced.”

After the communists from Russia took over the government of Bulgaria in 1944 they began to eliminate their political opponents as best they could. That is what authoritarians like to do, as we are now finding out. They started that right after their coup d’état in 1944. The new Bulgarian government implemented a policy of terror and intimidation across the country. In fact, the mass purge organized by Bulgarian authorities was the most brutal among all USSR satellite countries. By autumn that year, between 20,000-40,000 people were murdered or imprisoned without any trial. They were, among others, members of local authorities, notables, teachers, Orthodox priests and traders.

 

Officials at all levels were expelled with justifications ranging from retribution for past offences and the “fight against fascism”. Again, sadly, this now sounds very familiar to us even in North America. Some of the officials associated with the previous government were arrested as early as September 9 1944. As we have learned recently, authoritarians or ‘wanne’ be authoritarians, like to impose revenge on their enemies. In Bulgaria, many of them were deported to the USSR where they could be dealt with expeditiously.  About 130 “show trials” as we have come to call them, were held from December 1944 to June 1945. They were called “People’s Tribunals” to make them sound innocuous. Many of the so-called “judges” had no legal education or experience. About 10,000 people were accused, including members of the ruling Bulgarian dynasty, royal councillors, most of the cabinet ministers of the 1941 government, members of parliament, officers, policemen, city mayors, businessmen, lawyers, judges, journalists, and so on. About 2,700 of them were sentenced to death, more than 1,200 to life imprisonment and about 1,600 to long-term imprisonment.

 

 

Baba Vida Fortress

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, Fortress

 

 

When we were in Vidin Bulgaria, we were brought to Baba Vida a medieval castle right in the town. It was the town’s primary landmark. It consists of two concentric curtain walls and 9 towers of which three are preserved to their full medieval height, including the original battlements. It is the only entirely preserved medieval castle in Bulgaria. I am not sure why but there is no water in the moat now, though historically it was filled with water.

 

Construction began on the castle in the 10th century A.D. on the site of an earlier Roman castle at Bononia. This castle, like Bran castle has attracted a legend, or should we say conspiracy theory. According to legend, a Danubian Bulgarian king who ruled at Vidin had three daughters: Vida, Kula and Gamza. Prior to his death, he divided his realm among the three daughters. Vida, the eldest, was given Vidin and the lands north to the Carpathians while Kula was awarded Zajecar and the Timok Valley and the third daughter Gamza was given the land to the west up to Morava. Both Gamza and Kula did not marry wisely. They married drunken bums who had a nasty proclivity for war. The name of Vida’s castle is Baba Vida, which as anyone who knows a little bit of Ukrainian knows means Granny Vida.

So this is the castle that has survived. It was the main defensive fortress of Bulgaria during all of the Middle Ages. The castle withstood an 8-month siege by Byzantine forces led by Basil II.  During the rule of Tsar Ivan Sratsimir (1356-1369) it was modernized and enlarged and served as his capital. The Hungarians took it over, by force of course, from 1365 to 1369, so their reign was brief. Ivan Sratsimir regained it in 1369 but Hungarians still ruled. In time of course, the Ottomans took control during their reign which lasted about 500 years.

 

In the town of Vidin, we learned as we drove through it on our bus, that only 18 Jews are left in the city, even though there was a very large synagogue. It was built years ago when there were many Jews in the city. As we know, many Jews were murdered during the Second World War when Bulgaria was occupied by Nazi Germany. Many had to flee or were captured and sent to concentration camps. No one talked about the concentration camps but I did find out about them. More on that later.

 

Our local guide was very proud that the synagogue was now a cultural centre. She was also proud that now within the city in about 1 small block, there was a mosque, a church, and a synagogue and all the people from all 3 religions now got along well. Apparently, their religious leaders frequently meet to have coffee together and discuss issues of the day. In Vidin now there is tolerance and pluralism. People believe in the idea of “live and let live.”  Each community is free to worship as they see fit without any harassment from any other religion.

That’s the way it is now, but it was not always like that. More on that later.

 

Arbanasi : Churches can be Interesting and Happy Hours Sacred

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, Churches, religion

 

For lunch we dined at the Yantra Grand Hotel. It was truly grand with grand views of the countryside. I dined with Phillipe from Normandy France and his wife Diane from Chicago. They live in both countries. Nick from Toronto joined us. It was a diverse group and we dined without arguments or animosity. It sounds strange to say it.

After lunch we explored one of the oldest towns in Bulgaria (circa 4300 BC), as well as Bulgarian Revival architecture in the 15th-century town of Arbanasi with an eclectic combination of old style and modern architecture, as well as its churches and monasteries I was told the Real estate is among the most expensive in the country of Bulgaria. I never realized it before, but Bulgaria is a very popular tourist destination among Europeans. It is much more than a former Communist country.

The first place we visited after that was another old church. I know some members of our group were getting sick of churches. I rarely attend church but found them very interesting. Maybe I should go more often. Churches can be interesting. This one is called Church of the Nativity of Christ (c. 15th-17th century). This really is a remarkable old church in a fairly small village that has more than one interesting church. Remember that this village has been around for approximately 4,300 years before the birth of Christ. In this church nearly every inch of the vaulted interior is covered in unique frescoes depicting 2,000 scenes from the Bible! It also has more than 3,500 images of saints.

The Village of Arbanasi, one of Bulgaria’s most attractive settlements, is located on a high plateau 4km northeast of Veliko Tarnovo. Traditional architectural styles are maintained throughout the village, and fortified houses from the 17th century are maintained there with some very well-preserved and open to the public as museums.

In this tiny village you could visit an astounding number of preserved churches and monasteries, together with remarkable collection of religious art from the 16th and 17th centuries. We were greeted by an interpreter who told us that officially no photography was permitted but she was probably the most liberal of the interpreters, making it clear that we could take photographs as far as she was concerned.  To be as discreet as possible I was using my cell phone rather than my big DSLR camera. I took just a couple of photos.

 

The church is covered in murals and paintings depicting various aspect of Christian history. It is an incredible collection of Christian art produced in several stages from 1597 to 1681. There were literally hundreds of paintings in a small church.

We also visited one of the fortified houses of a wealthy merchant family. Ordinary houses were fortified, not just churches!  It was called Konstantsalieva House which was built in the 17th century which was an excellent example of era’s fine attention to detail and quality craftsmanship. The house was not large. About the size of a modern bungalow back home with a fortification wall surrounding it.  If the Turks arrived you would have to man defences at any time. I was puzzled by the fact that it had just 1 bedroom for a family of about 9 people, including 3 generations. And these were well-to-do people.

 

Given that we were all tourists from North America it is hardly surprising that we were also led to 2 gift shops in the tiny village. Again, I bought nothing. I had 2 excuses. I had no cash, although here I could probably have used a credit card. Second excuse, I had absolutely no room in my suitcase. I was deliberately going lighter. Just before the trip started, I bought a much smaller suitcase, even though on my last trip to Victoria, I had been over weight. This is the new me. Go light or stay home. Next time I will go even lighter.

Later, we joined our ship in Svistov where it had sailed with Christiane from Ruse. On the cruise ship we did what we always did. We participated in Happy Hour.  This was a great way to meet people. We met people from around the world. On this photo there are people from Tennessee, Ste. Anne Manitoba, Winnipeg, and New Zealand. And  we had fun in the process. Lots o convivial conversation.  Happy hours became a sacred trust. Each of us can kind find the sacred as where we find it.

 

Patriarchal Cathedral of the Holy Ascension of the Lord in Veliko Târnovo

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, Churches, Fortress

 

 

While in Bulgaria, we visited the spectacular Patriarchal Cathedral of the Holy Ascension of the Lord. That is quite a handle. It is a former Eastern Orthodox cathedral in Veliko Tarnovo. This city has been called the “City of Tsars” and was the capital of Bulgaria during the Second Bulgarian Empire from the 12th to the 14th centuries. It is located on a top of a fortress, or fortified hill. I found it very telling on this trip how often churches were part of fortresses. It told me how often wars were religious wars.

The cathedral was the seat of the Bulgarian patriarch from the time it was built in the 11th and 12th centuries to the time it was destroyed in 1393 by the Ottoman Turks. It stands on top of a late Roman church that was built in the 5th and 6th centuries. Even Christian churches used predecessor churches for building materials. The church was reconstructed in the 1970s and 1980s.

It follows a cross-domed plan with a bell tower and triple apse. Both the interior and exterior are richly decorated. In the Balkans people don’t spare the cash when it comes to churches, unlike how Mennonites used to do it.

Its internal walls are now filled with modern frescoes, which I learned meant that it has not been reconsecrated. It is not an active Christian church. I think that means it has been built for tourists who come here and take a lot of photographs. Built for people like me. It has been opened for visitors—paying visitors—since 1985.

The original church was built to be part of a monastery. The fact that the church contains relics of a warrior saint signifies the constant warfare between the Romans (Latins) and Byzantines (Orthodox).  Yes, Christians fought each other too.

 

The original Patriarchal Cathedral was destroyed after the Ottomans captured the Bulgarian capital during the siege of Tarnovo on July 17 1393.

 

 

Veliko Târnovo: Where religions have finally learned to get along

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, Politics & Religion

 

We spent the night on our boat at Ruse, Bulgaria the city often called “Bulgaria’s Little Vienna.”  The city was founded by the Romans and became under the Ottoman Domination the largest and most important Ottoman town along the Danube.

 

From there I went on an excursion and the first place we stopped was Veliko Târnovo, the former Bulgarian capital—with its ancient stone houses clinging to the cliffs above the Yantra River.

 

Unfortunately, Christiane stayed behind on the boat as she was told by the Cruise director that it would be too steep. We were moored at the city of Russe

 

I will give you just a little bit of the history of Bulgaria. It was founded by the Romans in the 1st century A.D. Ancient Bulgarians rule until the Turks conquered it in the 14th century and then dominated Bulgaria for nearly 500 years until it was liberated in the late 19th century and then became independent in the early 20th century. “Liberated” of course just means captured by other powers, in this case the Austro-Hungarian empire.

 

During the reign of the Turks, they reorganized the Bulgarian territories and basically parcelled them out to the Sultan’s close followers but they could sell the land or pass it on to their children. Instead, when the owner died it reverted to the Sultan. He did however share it with other nobles to gain their loyalty.

 

During this time Christians had to pay disproportionately higher taxes than Muslims. These taxes were an important source of revenue for the Ottomans.  By the early 1600s a system had been established whereby land was divided into estates granted to senior Ottoman officials- as a form of tax farming. I don’t know what tax farming is, but it sounds unsavoury. Sort of like eating maggots seems unsavoury.   This created conditions for the severe exploitation of taxpayers by unscrupulous land holders. As happened everywhere, the rich exploited the poor by divine right.

 

The domination however was pretty absolute. For example, there was the infamous blood tax (кръвен данък), also known as devsirme where, where young Christian Bulgarian boys were taken from their families, enslaved and forced to convert to Islam and later employed either in the military corps or the Ottoman administrative system. The boys had to be unmarried and, once taken, were ordered to cut all ties with their family, similar to what Canada did to its indigenous children and for the same reason—assumed superiority.

 

Christians faced other forms of oppression. They were not allowed to testify in court against Muslims in inter-faith disputes, but they were allowed to perform their own religious ceremonies provided they did in such a way that it was not conspicuous to the Muslims. Loud prayers and bell-ringing were barred.  They were weirdly barred from riding horses, from wearing certain colours or from carrying weapons.

 

Christian houses of worship of Christians had to be smaller and lower and more modest than Mosques as a mark of subservience.  Christians however managed to build some of their churches partially underground to get around such regulation. They looked squatter than they really were.

 

What can I say, when it comes to religious domination, things get weird.

 

The Ottoman’s also started mass population transfers in the late 1300s and the practice continued for nearly 200 years well into the 1500s. The goal was not only to convert Christians to Islam but also to assimilate the Bulgarians so that they would be less likely to revolt. They wanted to “mix people” to quell unrest.

 

Though to some disagree, the Ottomans rarely practiced forced Islamisation of the Bulgarians, but rather voluntary, by offering them economic and religious benefits. Of course, using the state to convert the barbarians makes the voluntariness to some extent a sham. For example, in some cases, conversion to Islam can be said to have been the result of tax coercion, due to the much lower tax burden on Muslims.  Many converted to pay less taxes or gain status. Obviously, their faith was not vital to them. Not as vital as money at least.

 

The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 led to the diminishment of the Turkish state to a small Ottoman vassal state.

 

During the Communist occupation of the country starting in 1945, religion was unofficially banned.  One of the interesting things about the country was that during Communism it had the highest levels of private property in the Soviet empire.  People were used to owning their apartments.

 

Veliko Tarnovo is a province in the middle of the northern Part of Bulgaria close to the Danube River. It is famous for its ancient stone houses clinging to the cliffs above the Yantra River. The city was the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire.

 

86% of the people in Bulgaria purport to be Orthodox Christians, but as we found out from nearly every one of our guides on this trip through the Balkans, they called themselves Orthodox Christians but rarely went to church and rarely were affected by their religion. Religion here is mainly nominal. Sort of like Quebec, and unlike the southern United States.

 

One of the things we saw a lot of evidence of, was religious takeovers throughout history. Whenever a new religion took over a church or mosque or synagogue the old religious facility became building materials. Basically, each successor religious group did this to the one being taken over.

 

 

This seemed like a pretty spectacular place, until I realized it was really just a gift shop and a large washroom. Old people on tours need washrooms frequently and why not build one with a gift shop and extract some of their cash? And why can’t old people have spectacular wash rooms?

 

I learned in Romania that it was very difficult to use your credit card because the Romanian money is considered a joke, and carrying too much cash there would be a mistake because it would be orphaned with me. So why not avoid buying anything? It felt a little unkind, but it was a great way to go. Who needs more junk?

 

I ended up doing this through most of my time in Balkans.  Unless for some reason I was using a credit card I had no money to tip someone. Even though some think I am a cheap Mennonite, I did not do this to avoid tipping. But it had a side benefit. For me. I spent almost nothing on this trip once I paid for the cruise and the flights. Believe me, that was expense enough.

84% of the people in the country are ethnic Bulgarians and 9 & ½% are Turks and 4% Roma or gypsy. After centuries of fighting now they finally  get along well. We can do better!

Bulgaria has been in the EU since 2007 and NATO since 2004. It has been part of the Schengen zone on a trial basis since 2003 if flying by air.  Recently, it is also included for trips by land. The Schengen Area is a zone of 29 European countries that have abolished internal border controls, allowing for free movement between member states as if it were a single country. It includes most EU member states as well as some non-EU countries like Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. The area operates with a common visa policy and heightened security at its external borders. I really wish the entire world could operate like that. It would go a long way toward making travel civilized again.  Bulgaria is scheduled to switch to the Euro in 2026. That would be the second leg of the civilization process.

 

Yet Bulgaria is still one of the poorest countries of Europe. Before 1944 Bulgaria benefited and gained prosperity from farming.  After the Communists took over farming by expropriation and nationalisation co-operative farming became popular and is still popular. Most families moved to the cities and started working in factories. The 1950s and 1960s were periods of great industrialisation.

 

After the Bulgarian Revolution of 1997 when the Communists were evicted, many people got their farms back but often the family no longer knew how to farm nor had the equipment to farm. Some families no longer wanted to farm but did so collectively. Now 98% of farm land is farmed collectively. Machinery is owned in common and crops are marketed in common. Sort of like our old Canadian Wheat Board. That is one of the reasons we saw so few fences in Bulgaria.

 

 

Belogradchik Fortress

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, Fortress

 

 

 

We had a lovely visit to a special place, namely Belogradchik Bulgaria. “Belogradchik” means Small White Town and is found in Vidin province in the northwest part of Bulgaria and about 50 km south of the Danube River. It is just east of the Serbian border. It has a population of about 5,000 people. It is most famous for its fortress amid the Belogradchik rocks which provide its sensational setting. Frankly, the rocks reminded me of the Superstition Mountains of souther Arizona.

 

Belogradchik Fortress, also known as Kaleto, which comes from the Turkish word kale is a very old fortress on the north slopes of the Balkan Mountains. It was built by the Romans in the 3rd  century AD. Naturally, it has become a famous tourist attraction drawing tourists from as far away as Steinbach, Manitoba. It is one of the best-preserved strongholds in Bulgaria and a cultural monument of national importance.

 

The fortress’s walls are more than 2 metres (6.6 ft) thick in the foundation and reach up to 12 m (39 ft) in height. It consists of 3 separate fortified yards connected with each other through gates. The fortress has a total area of 10,210 square metres (109,900 sq ft). The Belogradchik Fortress was reconstructed to later become a proclaimed cultural monument.

 

The fortress was originally built by the Romans during its empire to defend its northern border from the ugly hordes. It uses the natural rock walls as part of the fortress together with fortified stone walls. The yard is beautifully surrounded by rocks. The rocks are up to 70 m high (230 ft.). At first its primary task was to serve as a means of surveillance and not so much defense. Fortified garrisons were added in the 14th century. Of all the castles in Bulgaria, it was only secondary in importance to the fortress of Baba in Vidin which we saw later in the day.

 

The fortress was captured by the Ottomans in 1393. Many changes were made to the fort in the 19th century by the Ottomans but has European elements because the engineers were French and Italian. There was some globalization even then.

 

An important part of the splendor of the fortress is of course the surrounding rocks. Those rocks are of course bit older than the fortress. The rocks were formed 230 million years ago, when this land was located at the bottom of a shallow sea. Sedimentary rocks consisting of limestone components were created by the forces of weight and subsequent erosion. Much later a crack appeared in the sea bottom and water drained out to the red sea revealing the beautiful  red and orange rocks and 20 centuries of history in the Balkan Mountains.

 

On our walk up the hill, I noticed a man slip down and fall right in front of me on the trail up to the fort. I must mention that falls were a big part of this trip. Our tour director kept warning us to watch our step but that did not help. Frankly, many of the sites were not very safe.  I heeded his advice and did not walk all the way up. Later I regretted that decision because I did not see the fortress from the inside nestled against the big rocks.  Perhaps I was too cautious. I was disappointed how little people in the Balkans soften the hurdles to seeing the sites and failed to provide railings or adequate steps. As a result sliding and slipping on the rocks was a bit treacherous. So I only walked part way up. Now I wonder if I gave up to easily.

 

Bulgaria: Where men are men and women are (usually) women

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, Bulgaria

JP

There were 147 passengers on board our vessel Avalon Passion. Some of them were quite sane. This one not so much. But he sure was  one with whom it was fun to travel. HIs name is JP and we have a traveled with him a couple of times and he is always upbeat and having a good time. Hard to find a better travelling companion

The second country we visited on our Balkan journey was Bulgaria.  I knew almost nothing about Bulgaria before the trip began. I knew that they had been taken over by the Soviet Empire without permission. That was how the Russians operated. They would apologize later as the saying goes, but they never apologized.  The Russians advertised the hostile takeover as a friendly takeover, but that was fake news.  They did this at the end of World War II.

Like so many countries in the Balkans they were rarely independent. Usually some big boys in the area took them over, like it or not. An early society that occupied the lands of current Bulgaria was the Karanovo culture which existed around 6,500 B.C.  From that time to the 3rd century B.B. the region became the battleground of warring cultures that included Thracians, Persians, Celts, and Macedonians.

Things finally stabilized when the Romans conquered those culture around 45 A.D.  That stability was shattered when the Roman state splintered around the 6th century A.D allowing in what we used to call Barbarians, which meant tribal invasions that included early Slavs, Bulgars establishing the First Bulgarian Empire recognized as such with a treaty made in 681 A.D. it dominated most of the Balkans and significantly influenced Slavic cultures when it developed the Cyrillic script. It became a great power of its time when the Krum dynasty took power. That first Bulgarian empire lasted until the 11th century when the Byzantine Empire began its domination of the Balkan peninsula after Basil II conquered and then dismantled it.

 

The second Bulgarian empire arose when it revolted against the Byzantine Empire in 1185. That second empire lasted until it was conquered by the Ottomans in 1396 and lasted for nearly 500 years. Many aspects of that culture are still visible particularly in buildings such as mosques. The Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878 created the 3rd Bulgarian Empire but it was taken over by the Communists in 1946.

 

That regime lasted until 1989 when the Soviet Empire collapsed. After that the country has transitioned into a democratic state which joined the European Common Market (now EU) and NATO. It is also part of the Schengen Zone. That means that once you cross the border into Bulgaria you don’t need to pull out your passport until you leave the EU. For example, you can go all the way to the UK without reporting in to any border crossing.

 

As I mentioned I really knew nothing about Bulgaria before I left, other than a few articles on line and a very interesting CBC radio show, Ideas, which I will get to a little later.  One of my friends mockingly said all he knew about Bulgaria was that the women there looked by big strong men who could heave a shot put in the Olympics about as far as a male Olympic athlete. Long before Gender ideology became a thing or gender dysphoria, we had suspicions about the real gender or sex of these athletes.

Well, I am happy to report that the women in Bulgaria look just as good and feminine as women anywhere in Europe. Everyone should go to Bulgaria. It’s worth the trip.

Men need not be afraid.

 

Cruising through the Balkans

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, War

 

 

I took this photo as we left our first port city of Oltenita while sitting on the deck of the Avalon Passion.

We cruised through the Balkans on this journey. But—what are the Balkans?

 

The Balkans are a peninsula in southeastern Europe, known as the Balkan Peninsula, but they are also a word used to describe a number of diverse countries and cultures that are found in that region.

 

There are various definitions for it. Here is one that I found as a result of an AI search I made. I did not know I was making an AI search but that is what the message I received indicated. So, I will believe it.  That definition is based on bodies of water. Here it is: “It is bordered by the Adriatic Sea to the northwest, the Ionian and Aegean Seas to the southwest and south, and the Black Sea and Turkish straits to the east.”

If your geography, like mine is not really up to snuff, then you can say this about the Balkans (again according to that AI search):

 

“Geographically, it’s defined by rugged mountain ranges and is surrounded by the Adriatic, Mediterranean, and Black Seas, though the exact borders can vary. Historically, the region has a complex and turbulent past, shaped by centuries of Ottoman rule, and today includes countries like Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia, though the inclusion of some countries is debated.  I thought Hungary was included, but that might be a bit beyond the boundaries.  I want to include it because we will be going to Hungary, so I will include it. That means that all the countries we will be visiting are part of the Balkans.”

 

Here is what I really know. First and foremost, the people are incredibly interesting. There is nothing boring about the Balkans. Remember the word above that you might have missed— “turbulent.” Politics here is never boring. Some people refer to the Balkan as the place where wars are born. Most famously, the match that lit World War 1 occurred when the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand occurred in part of the Balkans, namely, Sarajevo in 1914.  Sarajevo was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was formed after World War I, in 1918, although the region of Bosnia and Herzegovina was later a part of the country before becoming independent in 1992.

 

Secondly, the Balkans have been the plaything of greater powers.  Our Romanian guide Vio, grumbled that Romania, one of those countries had been enslaved by Greeks, Turks, Austro-Hungarians, Germans and most recently, Russians. He openly wondered who would be next in line, as he saw signs of a crumbling country. It seemed obvious to him that Romania would be enslaved again.

 

And great powers rarely care much about lesser powers. Except of course when they want to exploit them. It was actually a ridiculous event that should never have happened. No one really cared about that assassination. Yet the various countries of Europe set about a brutal long-lasting war after many years of preparation for war by all of the countries involved. The countries were all European countries seeking to enhance or start up their empires. There was no reason for the war and it served no military purpose. Amazingly however, in a number of European countries the young men in particular, and even older men goading on the younger men, were all wildly overjoyed at the fact that war had been declared. Many felt it was a chance for young men to obtain glory. In other words, the war was categorically stupid, and happened in part just because the flash that started the war did so in the Balkans. I first heard of this phenomenon from reading the autobiography of Bertrand Russell. He was a young man when World War I was declared in 1914 and saw the young men of England in Trafalgar Square ecstatic at the prospect of war.

 

And that could happen again. The Balkans are a perennial hot spot. Maybe this is where the next world war will ignite. Just before we got here a Russian drone, mistakenly they said, flew over Romania.

 

 

This ship name with the name Mariupol painted on it reminded me of how close we were to the latest war in Europe, the largest since World War II, the War in Ukraine.  There occurred  absolute slaughter by the Russians in Mariupol.