Visiting and Shopping

Travel is by a four-wheel bike serving faithfully since November 2020. That it is Chinese-made is the only thing known about it as there is no brand name anywhere on the probably pirated machine. But it is light, manageable, and certainly faster than a donkey.

Travelling is mainly to Vruv which is a 15 min drive. The car-track running along the bank of the river goes up a hundred metres east of my father’s camp to gain the height of the bluff which rises behind the camp.

My father thinks that the jackal’s birthing den must be there, possibly in some part of a badger sett. That has to be found out, but now is not the time. The pups would be only about 20 days old and any human disturbance would be very unwelcome. It may lead to the mother moving them to another place.

The River Km 842 sign stands on the left as one goes up the track.

The idea is that the river traffic should see it, but that is something of days gone by as navigation nowadays is by GPS. Still, the river km pillars are dotting both sides of the river and are kept standing and in order by the respective Danube countries. Given that the river is some 3,000 km long we are talking about six thousand River Km signs – one at every kilometer at each side of the river.

After one passes the 842 Km sign, the track runs across the face of the bluff and passes by a big mulberry tree.

It gives a good shade and also abundant fruit which is strewn all over the track. Pheasants whose croaking can be often heard during the day like that place.

Once over the bluff, cultivated land stretches on both sides of the track. But there is also a lot of land left to go wild.

Across the fields and to the west some ruins of the Roman fortress Dorticum can be seen.

Then, on the right of the track and close by the junction with the asphalt road leading to Vruv, there is the abandoned rose field now overgrown with poppies. A fading rose flower can be still seen here and there.

The village is a sight of growing desolation. There are nice houses here and there, but to every one of them there are several whose owners have either moved away or have died. Obituary notices are stuck all over front doors, and the houses are shut and left to their fate. The yards of many houses show strong sings of rewildening.

My father visiting trips are to Vruv where he is always welcome in the house of Emi and Petar Yunashkovi.

and also at Snezhina’s house which is next door.

It is nice to stop over at these welcoming places and chat over a cup of coffee with their owners. Important pieces of news are often shared. The most recent one of them is the sighting of a lynx crossing the road when Petar (Pesho) was returning from the town of Bregovo on 14 June. He claimed that the sighting was only a few kilometres before Vruv.

Market day for vegetables and fruit is on Wednesday. Given the size of the extant population, the market consists of one stall, which is carried around in a van. First the market goes to Novo selo, then at ten-thirty it arrives in Vruv,

and then goes to Bregovo - the last town before the border with Serbia.

Novo selo is much the bigger and central of all villages around, so one goes there for more special purchases. It boasts a beautiful clock tower

and a sleepy church.

Both Novo selo and Vruv have spacious squares built in times past when a numerous population thronged them on official holidays like Labour Day (1 May), or the Communist Revolution (9 September). But now the squares stay mostly empty the year round.

My father said that the scene reminded him of the episode in Erich Maria Remarque’s novel ‘The road back’ when soldiers returning home after the defeat were lined up in barrack squares. The squares were full with soldiers from end to end on the way to the front in 1914 but now five years on, those who remained alive occupied only a tiny part of those squares. It is much like that in Vruv and, in fact, all over this part of Bulgaria - only it is not the decimation of a shooting war that has caused it, but the silent one of outmigration. That is going on, emptying house after house.