From Stanevo to Vrav: Planning the 2026 Golden Jackal Field Season

Securing a local support in Vrav.

After a turbulent 2025 field season in Stanevo, it became clear that a new base would be needed for the 2026 golden jackal research period.

Wednesday, 9 July, was decided to be a day for taking a look at Vrav and the surrounding villages. Most importantly, my father and his colleagues wanted to see people who could help in setting up camp in May , and support the research activities during the projected field period (May-August ’26). Pesho Yunashkov was the organizer of this important networking mission, so after breakfast at his home, the whole group set out in Pesho’s car.

The first one to see was the Mayoress of Vrav, an energetic young woman who assured the researchers that she would help with whatever her office allowed. The short meeting at Vrav’s Mayor’s Office marked yet another strong difference with Stanevo. Despite the fact of my father’s presence at Km 727 - and indeed, of the whole family and numerous friends and colleagues - year after year for close to half a century, no one from the local administration ever took notice of the research activities or made any sign either of support or disapproval. Neither did the events of May-August ’25 raised an official eyebrow. The whole formal structure of Stanevo - including other state agencies besides the Mayor’s Office, was one suggesting that the village, but particularly the Danube bank existed in a stateless vacuum governed by informal relations and common law. The other state agencies - the Fisheries Inspection (IARA), Border Guards, River Traffic Inspection (DIK), etc. showed much the same attitude.

The situation in Vrav promised to be very different, mainly due to the fact that Pesho Yunashkov took to heart his mission of a host and guarding angel of the group. This gave high hopes that nothing like the fiery goings on around Stanevo would be repeated here.

Indeed, Vrav was a far cry from the flaming passions of Stanevo. The village had the look of a place of so diminished life functions that Stanevo by comparison was a bustling metropolis.

Vrav: A Village Of “Before”

Here everything was in the past, a life after death. This created serious problems in gathering information as to every question, the answer was not how matters stood at present, but how they used to be in the Socialist past. Thus, to the question about spring high-water levels and how far up the bank they reached, the answer was that in the past there was no trouble about that. The local authorities - mainly the Cooperative Farm with their heavy machinery - took care of all emergencies in those happy days. All questions about the current state of fishing - a vital matter for my father and the jackals alike - inspired nostalgic reminiscences of what fantastic catches used to be made in the past. The word for that was ‘before’ (Bulg. predi) so the tour of the village was mainly about what there was before and wasn’t there at present.

A change in this experience of moving in parallel time-frames, between the past and an elusive present, was a vegetable-stall in the central square, a very much here-and-now affair. That was, however, only partly true as Pesho pointed out immediately. As he said, in the golden age of ‘before’ the square was full of stalls on Wednesdays, which was the market day, and what the visitors were now seeing was nothing. More concerned about the present, my father bought a big chunk of white cheese from the seller, who turned out to be a Romanian from the other bank. The cheese proved to be excellent and cheaper than in Bulgarian shops. Before Pesho could launch on a speech about what cheese there used to be before, he also bought some yellow cheese from the Romanian.

The tour of ‘before’ took the group to the Port of Vruv to see sights which were no more. There was the pier where passenger boats stopped no more with a restaurant behind which was only a fond memory. Still, the welcome sight of moored fishing boats raised hopes that fishing was a real thing.

Fig. 1. The Port of Vrav (River Km 840), 87 km upriver from our previous Stanevo camp. Its proximity to the projected 2026 field site makes it a key logistical anchor for water-level monitoring and fishing activity.

The Port of Vrav and Water-Level Logistics.

The Port of Vrav is situated at River Km 840, 87 km upriver from the previous camp. Until the end of ‘before’, i.e. the early nineties, Vrav was the first port of call for passenger boats on the Bulgarian/Romanian stretch of the river. That went from Vrav to Silistra, the last Bulgarian port. From there on, at Km 375, the river swerves  north into Romania. This gives the length of the stretch shared between Bulgaria and Romania to be 470 km. 

A convenient fact was that in the Danube Study and Maintenance Office (IAPPD) daily bulletin of water-levels, the bigger neighbouring village of Novo selo, was cited as an automatic water-monitoring station covering the stretch from the Serbian border down to the next station at Gomotartsi. In this way, Novo selo, standing at Km 834, was only eight km downriver from the projected camp location at Km 842. This proximity to the monitoring station promised availability of accurate readings for the water-level by the camp, as well as a reliable forecast for the next few days. 

The area behind the overgrown pier held fond memories of a hotel and restaurant which used to welcome passengers and TID-canoeists in days now passed.

Fig. 2 The former restaurant and hostel complex behind the Vrav pier — once serving passengers and canoeists, now abandoned. Its disappearance reflects the broader post-socialist contraction of river infrastructure in the area.

Across the port square, hidden among the trees lay the ruins of a spacious store-house for grain, built by the Germans during the last war. From Vrav, grain used to be transported in barges all the way to Austria and Germany.

Having seen all the sights there were to see in Vrav, the group continued to Novo Selo for a brief look around.

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Novo Selo: Economic Stability and Regional Signals

Novo Selo was a much bigger village than Vrav with close to 900 inhabitants. By all appearances, it was a very different affair. Unlike in Vrav, here there was an economic engine of some scale. This was a biggish wine-producing firm with their own vineyard on the environs of the village as well as in other places. According to their site (<izba-novoselo@abv.bg>), they owned, beside the cellar, 175 acres of an industrial vineyard close to the village.

The history of this wine-producing business was interesting. It began in 1939 as a wine-producing co-operative, the huge cellar itself being built with the voluntary labour of the villagers. In State Socialism days, the co-operative became part of a state-farm, which after the reforms of ’89 was liquidated and privatized. It was thus that the new democratic times turned what was a pre-Communist and then a Communist co-operative, into a long succession of private businesses. Since 2021, the owner has been a limited company with the foreign sounding name of Ben Hun Agro Ltd. Whatever the permutations of the new democratic times on the local terrain, it was obvious that Ben Hun was keeping the village alive. Moreover, it seemed to be a mightier force than Rubin Ltd near Stanevo. A forest-fire did also occur a fortnight after the departure of the group . Unlike the devastation of Rubin - twice in the space of a month - Ben Hun’s vineyards were never touched. What the reason for that remains unknown, maybe the fire-brigade was more responsive or the fire died down of itself - but the group read signs in every local occurrence and could not help but see another green flag here too.

Fig. 3. Novo Selo’s central square — a sign of a functioning local centre, supported by wine production and cross-border trade. Regional economic stability may indirectly support long-term field operations.

Fig. 4. The Ben Hun wine cellar in Novo Selo. Unlike neighbouring areas affected by repeated fires, the vineyard remained untouched — an example of the uneven resilience of local enterprises in the region.

Border Security and Camp Safety

After residing in the present for a while, the group took the road back to Vrav and in the past beyond. A few kilometres from Vrav in the western direction, there were the buildings of the Border Guard Station, situated a couple of kilometres upriver from the projected camp. In this way the modern station was not far from where its ancient predecessor was - the fortified camp of Dorticum. , much like in Roman times. The main tasks of the two camps differed though. Dorticum was principally meant to defend the bridge across Timok, while the present-day station’s main concern was with illegal migrants crossing over to Romania or Serbia. A decision was taken to arrange a visit to the Border Guards to present the team and its goals. Due to lack of time, that important task had to be put off until spring.

Historical Layers Along the Danube.

The road the group traveled followed the path of the Roman Via Istrum, which started at Singidunum (modern-day Belgrade) and connected eastward with Via Pontica, the route linking the Ancient Greek colonies along the Black Sea coast. From a military perspective, Via Istrum was an effective route for moving troops along the right bank of the Danube in the Province of Lower Moesia (Moesia Inferior), extending all the way to the Danube Delta.

The next stop on this ancient road, going back to the 1^st c. AD, was the Village of Kudelin, 3 km to the NW of Vrav. From the road a number of fishing boats could be seen moored close to the point where the river Timok flew into the Danube. A welcome sight by all means, the twenty or so boats had all of their outboards perched on the transoms, as well as their oars left in the rowlocks. This was a good sign of safety in this remote location, probably due to the watchful presence of the Border Guards.

From there on the Village of Kudelin was another story of good times gone and a present, fading out due to outmigration. The outboards were of makes, however, suggesting that local die-hards were rewarded by children having migrated to all corners of the earth. A care home for elderly people with dementia, half a kilometer before entering the village was a sad reminder of quiet suffering when the children had gone away.

There was one more village as the last stop before crossing the border. This was Balei, whose main claim to fame was that it was the home village of a survivor of the Titanic tragedy. Having made it to the States, that lucky man and good swimmer did not forget his family and sent support to the end of his life. The family house he helped to build still stands but the family itself seems to have abandoned it. The seal of oblivion is on it like the majority of houses in this northwestern-most corner of the country.

Fig. 5. The former home of a Titanic survivor in Balei. Blinded windows and obituary notices reflect ongoing depopulation in this northwestern border region.

The group returned via the Тown of Bregovo (1644), the centre of the municipality. My father was advised to drive to here on his four-wheel bike, as shopping was better. This was due to the fact that there was access to good and cheap groceries from both Serbia and Romania. Local people would cross over to the Serbian town of Bukovče for shopping as food-products there were better and cheaper.

Preparing the Ground: Equipment and Camp Infrastructure

Two more stops were made on the way back to Vrav. One was to meet a young man who had a small agro-machinery business. With Pesho’s pull in local affairs it was agreed that a storage space for the heavier camp equipment will be ensured. One more meeting was arranged - with another local businessman, who offered to help with a bulldozer in levelling out a space at the projected camp-location for putting up the big camp-tent.

With local storage secured, machinery promised, and administrative support in place, Vrav began to look less like a fading river village and more like a viable base for the 2026 golden jackal field season.

Whether the ecological conditions of this stretch of the Danube will prove as favourable as its logistical advantages remains to be tested. The coming spring will reveal whether Vrav offers the stability that eluded us in Stanevo.