How to name the place where the river is born from the lake? I think about it in the garden of the Relax cafe on the shore of Lake Ohrid. A few meters from me, it seems to close its mouth for a kiss, so that the green-black water of the Drima gushes out from that kiss, dividing the town of Struga in half with its flow.
Crnodrim East
The place could be called a spring, if it weren't for our habit of imagining springs as water that flows out from under some rock. Since Drim literally flows out of the lake, the place could be called east. If it weren't for our habit, according to which the word is already reserved for the place where the sun rises.
I am wise about words, drinking my cold nes at the end of August, here at one of those fascinating points of the Balkans, which stop the breath with an excess of beauty.
Linguists hear Latin, ancient Greek, Illyrian, Indo-European, ancient Indian layers in the root of the word Drim. So they stopped at the Avestan language, in which the writings of the Old Iranian religion of Zarathustra were recorded: dru - tok, brzekak.
I imagine this water leaving Struga towards the north, forming the border of North Macedonia and Albania for a while, before rushing into the fraternal embrace of Bijela Drim, and finally settling down with its larger arm in the bosom of Bojana - born in another miraculous lake - Skadar. It could be said that there, far away, at the confluence, the waters of Ohrid and Skadar meet.
Yes, water is a miracle, and especially this one, which I look at in disbelief, with some wonder, as always when images from reality take on the quality of a dream.
The lathe and me
Sometimes life is played with round numbers. I visited Struga for the first time in 1991. Yugoslavia was dying, and I was invited to the Struga poetry evenings. I flew for the first time by plane - from Sarajevo to Belgrade in a Slovenian modern jet, and from Belgrade to Skopje in a plane of the newly founded Macedonian airline. Warnings on the seats were written in Russian and Bulgarian. The propeller resembled a cardboard model of the twin-engined Lokhid 12 that Ingrid Bergman would fly away with in the movie Casablanca after breaking up with Humphrey Bogart.
In Struga, we were greeted by the then chief Macedonian in Yugoslavia, the mustachioed Vasil Tupurkovski, in a white suit. I hung out with Slovenian young poets who shared weed as if it were baklava. I remember the lake in front of the hotel as calm, benign water. The bar on the beach had a long bar, endless reggae was playing from the speakers at our insistence that summer.
And here I am, three decades later, in the same hotel that was renovated in 2012 to take on an exclusive look. I recognize the concrete ovals that touch each other on the back - Yugoslav modernism that would sometimes give birth to such a unique concrete flower.
This time I came by night bus from Leskovac and I am getting used to the attention shown by the hosts.
I will hang out with Macedonian poets Vladimir Martinovski and Jovica Ivanovski. From them I will learn something about the town, which faces the lake with its tourist facilities, but whose life thrives on the banks of the river.
Bridge of poetry
After the wooden constitutions, which presumably control the amount of water flowing into the regulated trough, Drim heads north. Five bridges were built across the river in the town. The first of them is the Bridge of Poetry. This is where the winners of the "Golden Wreath" - the most important award at the poetry festival - usually spoke their verses.
Struga appeared on the world map of poetry in the mid-sixties of the last century. During all these decades, the festival has turned into one of the most interesting international gathering places for the poetic elite.
Many top lyricists, whose books I cannot imagine my library without, came to Struga and socialized with their Balkan colleagues.
This is where literary Nobel laureates, already crowned with fame, toasted with wine. Joseph Brodsky was prevented from coming by his American government - war in Yugoslavia was expected. The name of the Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney is also included among the poets who are crowned with professional fame. But there were also those like the Italian Eugenio Montale, who received the Nobel Prize only after the Struga Golden Wreath.
Park of poetry
All this is literally palpable in the Poetry Park. If you go along the west coast, along the promenade by the river, behind the Cultural Center, which has seen better days, there is a park on the left. To an uninitiated observer, the park will look quite ordinary. But those who know what it is about, are aware that a walk in that park is actually a walk in the "sacred forest of poetry". Trees in the park were planted by laureates. The tiles under the trees indicate this. There is a tree of Hans Magnus Encesberger, Allen Ginzberg, Gennadi Aygi or Jan Ricos. The tree of Mija Pavlović, Mako Dizdar or Desanka Maksimović. Krleža's tree, the tree of Čarls Simić. Struga is unique in the world for this park.
One Far Eastern wisdom says that a person should create one child, write one book and plant one tree in his lifetime. These laureates achieved two out of three goals in Struga - I don't know how and who for the children.
A walk through Struga shows that the city is fatefully connected to the river. Lots of cafes and restaurants on the coast where you can drink and eat anything your heart desires - from Turkish tea, which we enjoyed one afternoon, to Skopje beer on tap in the Kingston cafe with endless conversations about writing and translation, to restaurants with national cuisine.
Titova Street
At the Beograd Hotel, from Boris Kidrič Quay, turn into the pedestrian zone - Maršala Tita Street. There are countries and areas where the Yugoslav heritage has not been repainted with the new "old" history - so the former Yugoslav president for life can still count posthumously with his streets in Istria, in Tuzla or - in Struga.
I also visited the Church of St. George - Macedonian icons always whisper to me something from bygone times. And right behind it is the city market, where bright red peppers promise another round of excellent Macedonian ajvar this year.
One afternoon with Vladimir Martinovski, I go to a place where tourists rarely come looking for sights - to the Scout camp on the shore of the lake, run by his friend Igor. In the shade of birches and pines, close to the center, Igor started a business in the middle of the pandemic in accordance with European environmental standards and - he cannot defend himself from work. We are talking about a paradox - as if the pandemic has brought some people back to their roots - to a more natural environment, better socializing. More soul, less luxury.
That makes me happy, and I cheer for my soul.
Already on the second day of my stay in Struga, I search with Vlatko - that's what we call Vladimir - the birthplace of the Miladinov brothers, whose significance for the local poetic tradition is unquestionable. In the 19th century, the Miladins were well educated, worked hard to enlighten the people, wrote, traveled, were close to all the pan-Slavist dreamers of that time and eventually ended up imprisoned in Constantinople. I really liked Konstantin Miladinov's song Žal za jugom (T'ga za jug), which is the unofficial anthem of all emigrants who have been traveling from the south to the north in Europe for several centuries.
Portraits of famous poets
On the same day, I meet with Vlatko and Lidija Dimkovska, who participated in the poetry festival in Struga in 1991, as I did. She now lives in Slovenia and received the main prize this year for a book of poems written in the Macedonian language. We agreed to visit Duško Đorgon's photo studio. He welcomed us nicely and patiently explained the history of many photos.
The 2011-year-old retired photographer didn't have to travel the world to portray famous contemporaries - the world came to him. Until XNUMX, for half a century, he followed the Struga poetry evenings through the lens of his cameras. He remembers famous world poets and their friendship. Some were inclined to be photographed, some were not. Some stayed with Duško in a pleasant conversation, others were in a hurry. Since one of the guests in Struga was Leopold Senghor - the Senegalese poet and the then first president of the independent country, the security did not let Duško get close to him. Judging by the photo from his private museum - he came close enough though.
In the studio, the books of world poets are arranged on one shelf. Documents of a bygone era. A good number of people whose faces I see are no longer among the living. But we are here, to remember them together with Duško.
I have to admit, I asked Duško to let me see the old photo albums, in case I would not come across my young self from 1991, in some of the photos of the festivities or literary performances of that time. I looked through a bunch of albums, I didn't find myself or the girls and boys of my generation. But I, looking at hundreds of photos, realized that all those moments when Struga was the capital of poetry in the world for a few days, would have been irretrievably lost, if it hadn't been for Duško. We say goodbye warmly. I hope to see him again.
A song in the age of covid
However, it is worth mentioning the pandemic. There was no traditional reading on the Bridge of Poetry, so that there would be no spontaneous gathering. In bars, they ask for a vaccination certificate, and when you show it from your smartphone, they don't want to look at it in detail. Many take your word for it. Despite everything, Struga is more relaxed than Ohrid. Less fancy, more bohemian.
This year's winner of the Golden Wreath, the British poet of Irish roots, Carol Ann Duffy, did not come. As well as a number of other poets. Their video addresses reminded us that the world is still in its strange phase. Everything is and is not the same as before. Everything is somewhat illusory-virtual, and somewhat real.
It would be unfair if I did not mention Vladan Krečković, a Serbian poet who received an international award for his debut book "Paris, Texas" published in the Belgrade Enclave.
He was born in 1988. He was three years old when I was here for the first time. Just as I was minus two years old when Jovan Strezovski founded the festival with other Macedonian poets in the early XNUMXs.
Poetry is renewed. Despite the era dominated by the superficial glitter of various screens. Despite the pandemic. Struga remains a place where the living pulse of many languages can be felt.
There is only one lathe
I remember that on the last morning in Struga, Jovica Ivanovski and I were looking for burek for breakfast, and we found škembe-soup in a cafe called - to put it another way - T'ga za jug.
Many great moments will not be included in this record: a visit to the village of Vevčani, where the carnival tradition is cherished, which declared itself a state in an attack of vicar inspiration. We are here in the restaurant Householder's house drank the best domestic vine in the country.
Or a visit to the village of Radožda, which stretches along the lake near the border with Albania. A number of fish restaurants, and we find excellent fish and good wine in the least pretentious one. Or the nightly poetry readings in Struga on the summer stage where anyone who wanted to came to the microphone. A Frenchman made a hilarious show reciting there.
In my memory, all that is already becoming a personal mythological time in Struga.
I can only remember the Macedonian poet Jovan Strezovski, who turned 90 in April. While he was speaking at the opening of the Struga Poetry Evenings, his body was trembling. We all noticed that and seemed to tremble with him. Jovan read everything he set his mind to. So how can I not see in it at least a temporary victory of the poetic spirit over perishable matter?
Macedonian proverb says - like Struga, there is no other. I was convinced of that again. In a very loose translation - Struga is one and only.
Bonus video:
