I posted the two Lomnice pieces on facebook. The response from people in the village and from the Lomnice diaspora (Germany, Switzerland, Italy) has been fantastic. A truly moving series of comments on the story and pictures that is all that I could have hoped for. One came in today from the son of the man who carried our rucksacks up to the village on his horse; his father used to tell him the story of when we came to the village. Amazing.
I drive into a typically chaotic village scene at Negotino, but think I have fond the tiny alley/road that leads to Lomnice. I pull over to make sure, a man walks past.
"Where are you going?" he asks. I explain my destination and the whole back story. He is fascinated. "Come, come with me, we shall have a coffee, I must tell everyone." Fekri is a football coach and scout for German and Italian teams wanting to know about Macedonian talent. He also seems to know everyone in town. About 10 people with a Lomnice connection, including one man who still lives there. They all look at the picture, and fill me in on a few people. One (who I remember as having blue eyes) became mayor of Negotino and had since died, as had a number of other people in the shot; hardly surprising! Then a man who had left the village with his family in the 80s, to return after 30 years working in Switzerland, looked at the picture and found his son. The little boy right in the centre of the picture at the front. Not only that, but he called him up in Berne where he lives as a coach driver, and face timed him, whilst he drove his coach. Amazing.
I was about to move on and drive up to the village itself, when two enormous artic trucks drove up the Lomnice road, and came to a juddering halt. The sat nav had sent them the wrong way, and they now had to reverse, one by one, back down the tiny road. It took half an hour, involving most of the village, but they got it sorted. What struck me was how calm everyone was, people's response was "how can I help?" rather than "who is to blame?"
I drove up in a bit of a daze. The road was blocked with a flock of sheep, two shepherds and three dogs (looked like Layla's anatolian cousins) this was another throwback. I had forgotten how beautiful the setting was. The mosque minuet rises above the village, stacked on the side of the valley with the woods all around, and the mountains looming behind. Fekri had warned me that now there were only 12 houses occupied, down from about 50 when I was there before. But I was still shocked, there was not a person around (although the occupied houses were obvious) no greeting this time. In fact, apart from the refurbished mosque, it was hard to work out where I had taken the photograph. Many building seemed to have collapsed or been demolished, so that I could not work it out.
I got back in the car and felt a bit subdued. The trip had been at once one of the most amazing experiences of my life, but I also felt a deep sadness at the same time. It was everything I had hoped, but also some of things I had feared.
40 years ago I walked across Europe. Ever since, every 10 years of so I thought about redoing the route in some way. In the end I have decided to visit a couple of places that were really key to my experience back in 1984.
The photo below was taken in the village of Lomnice in what was then the Republic of Macedonia in Yugoslavia. The village was high in a valley that led to the Sar Plannina mountain range that separated Macedonia from Kosovo. There was no road to the village, just a track. A man in Negotino in the main valley put our rucksacks on his horse and showed us the way up the path. Once in the village, everyone around gathered, tea was served, stories told. As was common then, no one had a camera. When I asked if I could photograph the group, people formed this perfect composition for me. The image has been in a couple of books, and consistently sold over the years. It is one of my favourite shots, and resonates with a lot of people. Lomnice was an ethnic Albanian village, in a predominantly Slav region. Over the border in Kosovo the first village I came to was Brod, which was a Slav village in a predominantly Albanian region. Given that the Milosovic wars of the 1990s would doubtless had stirred up such geo-ethnic complexity I was a little anxious about revisiting: not sure what I would find. To put it bluntly this could have been prime ethnic cleansing territory.
So I set off from Ohrid in a hire car, taking the route north that I had previously walked 40 year before. A new road much further up the valley side, meant that I was not able to see if a group of three girls who had invited us to camp in their garden, and whose mother brought us hot milk for breakfast, were still around; as three women in their 50s. I did see a stretch of the old road, far below the new one, to remind me of that walk long ago. The landscape looked incredible, huge gorges, mountains rising to the heavens. Just amazing.
Eventually I found the village of Negotino again. This is what I wrote in 1984 about this area.
"We head towards Gostivar, but luckily our route turns off before the town. The morning is spent on a back road through a string of busy villages. Many carts whizz by propelled by more decorative horses than before. The men wear skull caps, the women are wrapped up with many colours: a very eastern feel. We stop and have sweet tea in a cafe, and later we meet a young man who speaks English - likes Ray Charles and the blues, chats to us, helps me shop and is generally friendly. Then after Dobri Do it is on to lunch at Negotino where I try in vain to get some meths for the cooker - they thought I meant vodka. The guy had explained that most people around here are of Albanian of Turkish descent: a real treat. In another shop, a man has no meths but some paraffin, I am not so sure it will work so he conducts an experiment by putting a bit in our burner. Very messy and it doesn't work, but I appreciate his kindness. Then amidst a whole crowd of people we are told
1] do not try to cross into Kosovo over the plannina, there are Albanian border guards who will shoot you, wolves that will eat you, and snow that means you will not find your way.
and
2] here are directions for you to try.
We head on the path up to Lomnice, on our way a man with a horse and two lads stops to give our rucksacks a lift. We walk up next to the horse, enjoying not having rucksacks on for a change. At a village one boy gets a huge bowl of bread and yoghurt for us to eat - yummy. They show us the way into Lomnice where we are followed by a hoard of little children (we have seen kids of 9 today in charge of horse and carts) and feel like the pied piper, the muslim women hide their faces from me, and finally we come to the centre of this great village. Here we are treated to a cola and grisini and coffee from someone's home and talk from a man who had worked in Germany. And as we set off on our way the man who had given us coffee comes with his horse to take our rucksacks and guide us up to where we can camp, en route to our treacherous route for the next day. Even if we do not make it tomorrow it will have been worth it for these marvellous experiences and people. But please let us make it?"
That was then, but what will I find when I take the tiny road up to Lomnice now in 2024?
So the kale and cabbage can grow unhindered until the cabbage white butterflies arrives and find every hole in the netting that exists, lay their eggs and give the gift of caterpillars.
Don't even mention the slugs ...
We both had a day off in the week, so we walked in Sulli's wood south of York. Great to be out together. Then Paul came round to watch Germany tonk Scotland in the evening.
Meantime Rowan is in Porto with boyfriend Jamie. I have never been, and always wanted to see this beautiful bridge. So it was nice of her to send a photo.
Friends Dave & Emma had a couple of tickets for a reading of War Horse by the author Michael Morpurgo with musical accompaniment. We went along not knowing what to expect (neither Danielle or I had read the book or seen the film) but were really blown away by the power of the performance. Incredible. No pictures of horses but my nephew's son memorably called Layla a HorseWoof so here she is on the train.
We had meetings of both our bookgroups this week. First off we discussed The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. Set in both Cyprus and London it was a good book about a difficult history. It resonated with me on account of the many Cypriot friends I had in London (both Turkish and Greek). The magical realism was not that popular with most of the group but I didn't mind it.
Then our music book group had read Espedair Street by Ian Banks. This was a fictional tale of a 70s rock band from Glasgow. Apart from some overblown set piece scenes (a fight in a bar, a flight with a stoned pilot etc) it was pretty good, and gave us a lot to talk about.
