A Russian writer, Leontev, whom I read when I was younger, wrote about balkanski d\u00eemok \u2013\nthe Balkan smoke, which has a particular smell.<\/p>\n
In late autumn, when you roam across the plains of Budjak or Bessarabia, you see piles of\nleaves and branches smoking day and night. They smoulder with a bluish wisp that joins the\nearth with the sky in a lascivious dance resembling the movements of a Turkish belly dancer.\nThe smell is unmistakable and memorable, a mixture of dry leaves, twigs and plants that the\npeasants burn in their gardens. A great Russian philosopher who once travelled through the area\ncalled it balkanski d\u00eemok, Balkan smoke. We were not yet in the Balkans; we were just a gate\nthat the Slavic traveller went through on his way to the Balkans. But the smell was divine.<\/p>\n
Later in my life, I spent many months in different Balkan countries. I stayed a whole autumn\nin Sarajevo, one in Split on the Dalmatian shore, and one in Istanbul, on the shores of the\nBosphorus \u2013 another Balkan corner. Now I live in Bucharest.<\/p>\n
You are walking down the streets of the fascinating city of Sarajevo, you are 50, and\nsuddenly you are hit by a smell. A strong and familiar smell. You don\u2019t know exactly what it is,\nbut it triggers a memory, a powerful reliving of something forgotten. It reminds you of your\ngrandma making roasted peppers when you were a child. Oh, the smell of roasted peppers\u2026 it\nmakes you feel like you are born again. It makes the memory so vivid that you can even\nremember your grandmother\u2019s dry, cracked skin, you can feel her palm on your head.<\/p>\n
Bucharest, perhaps the most oriental European capital, is now the place where her child is\nraised. The Balkans are here \u2013 they are within us.<\/p>\n
I think that the Balkans within us, within Romania, which we are sometimes ashamed of, are\na great heritage \u2013 an incredible gift. Should we be ashamed of it? I wonder why. We are Balkan,\nEastern European and Central European at the same time. All these legacies make us richer,\nmore diverse, more special because we have this diverse wealth and the traces left by history that\nshould not be erased, but capitalized on.<\/p>\n
How I fell in love with Bucharest, that is, the Balkans<\/p>\n
I was born and grew up on the edge of Budjak, in Bessarabia, on the outskirts of the Eastern\nEmpire, in a very ethnically and religiously mixed area. I come from the south, and I am in love\nwith the steppes of Budjak and B\u0103r\u0103gan, the mouths of the Danube and the Black Sea. With the\nsmall towns there: Cahul, Chilia, Boglar, Vulc\u0103ne\u0219ti, Ismail, Cetatea Alb\u0103. But I am also in love\nwith Chi\u0219in\u0103u and Odessa, the cities of my childhood.<\/p>\n
When I was little and lived on the banks of the Prut, at the mouth of the Danube, I used to\nlisten to a radio station: This is Bucharest, Romania. In those days, for me, Bucharest was just a radio sound coming from a world very far away, although geographically it was just at a stone\u2019s throw. Back then it was easier to imagine that I would end up in Tashkent or Leningrad, in Moscow or Vladivostok, rather than in Bucharest. Bucharest was just a sound: a pretty damn pleasant sound. Bucharest is part of my childhood\u2019s sounds.<\/p>\n
I arrived in Bucharest after a long journey. First it was Chi\u0219in\u0103u, then Odessa \u2013 my model of\na true city. Then came Ia\u0219i, where I studied philosophy. Leaving Chi\u015fin\u0103u aside, Ia\u0219i was the most Russian city in Romania. Next came Cluj, which was totally different: much more\nconservative, much more settled, with fairly canonical rules and an exceptional Hungarian\ncommunity. There I did my master\u2019s degree and worked at an old synagogue turned into an art\ncentre.<\/p>\n
And then came Bucharest. A city I fell in love with. One of the most fascinating cities in\nwhich I have lived.<\/p>\n
When you move to a new city, the first time you go from the station to the centre remains\nvividly imprinted in your memory. When you leave a city, the way from the centre to the station\nis not easy to take; it makes you sad. I remember both ways quite well and, to be honest, I find it\nvery difficult to understand people who have lived all their life in only one city, people whose\n\u201chome\u201d is only one city. But this is a story for another day.<\/p>\n
At different times of the day, Bucharest can be very diverse. The morning Bucharest is alert,\nnervous, a bit brutal, you have to know how to sneak through the cursing and honking of the\ndrivers, the shoving in the subway or the bus. The midday Bucharest is more detached, more\ncheerful, more disposed towards irony. The evening Bucharest has several stages: nerves on\nedge, tiredness, the rush to get home, the lively atmosphere of the taverns where people sit and\nwait for the night. After dark, the \u201cnocturnal species\u201d of the city go out for a walk.<\/p>\n
I learned something very useful from my robbers and thieves. A city is like a coat. It has its\nown style and cut. Sometimes elegant, sometimes rough. It wants to catch your eye with what is\nvisible on the surface. You usually fall prey to this way of knowing it. You look at its fabric and\ncut, its shapes and colours, and you think you know it. But you cannot see its secrets, and it is\nprecisely those secrets that make it interesting. The true face of the city is not the one that is\nrevealed to you, but the one that is hidden from you. That is why you must pickpocket it like a\npickpocket does. This is what I do. I pickpocket Bucharest like my hero thieves. And Bucharest\nhas a lot of hidden pockets \u2013 it is always surprising.<\/p>\n
If Ia\u0219i, where I spent six years, is remarkably gentle and warm, and Cluj, where I spent ten\nyears, is distant and conservative, Bucharest is a mixture of everything. I know that such kind of\nlabelling is mere simplification, a lie in essence, because things are much more nuanced and\ncomplex. But we are always tempted to simplify. In the case of Bucharest, what I find very\ninteresting is that its \u201cnegative features\u201d are also its greatest assets. All the \u201cflaws\u201d of the city\nhave a special charm.<\/p>\n
Unlike the cities of Transylvania and Moldova, Bucharest is oriental. It is one of the most\noriental cities in Europe. It is the Orient of Europe. Considered from the colonial\nAustro\u2013Hungarian perspective, oriental elements take on a negative connotation. In reality,\n\nthings are more complicated. Interestingly, even for someone coming from Russia or Chi\u0219in\u0103u,\nBucharest still seems oriental, but its orientalism no longer has a negative connotation.<\/p>\n
The Russians have a saying: The Orient is a subtle matter. For me, Bucharest is attractive\nprecisely because of this subtle eclecticism and oriental air of the inner coast of Europe. It is an\noriental city located in a deeply European geographical area, albeit Byzantine, over which layers\nof various empires have settled: Turks, Greeks, Jews, Russians, Hungarians and, last but not\nleast, Roma. Among all these, there are many Romanians. The mixture, the cultural layers and\nthe identity breaks are visible in every corner: in architecture, in food, in behaviour, in music, in\neverything that moves. It is as if the people, though no longer having the memory of this history,\nbear the direct imprint of the city\u2019s past and eclecticism.<\/p>\n
Remember: Bucharest has not yet turned into a \u201ctourist city\u201d that wants to seduce you at all\ncost. Bucharest wants to be discovered slowly, leisurely, despite the typical rush of a metropolis.\nHere you are an explorer, not a tourist: the city reveals itself to you gradually. Bucharest doesn\u2019t\nsell you a false image as tourist cities do, because they live off of it. It reveals its real,\nunvarnished face.<\/p>\n
Here it is easy to communicate. You just sit down and to talk to people. It is easy to\nnegotiate, easy to swear, easy to help, easy to get robbed, easy to be protected, easy to be hated\nor loved. Here everything is smooth, nothing has angular, rigid shapes. I like this. Because I\u2019m\nalways in for a surprise and I have to renegotiate my ideas, my achievements and my\ndisappointments. Bucharest keeps you alive and kicking.<\/p>\n
Bucharest doesn\u2019t lie to you: it doesn\u2019t pretend to be what it isn\u2019t. Bucharest can rob you,\ncan suck your energies. Yet it can also give you a lot of energy if you know how to take\nadvantage of it and you have an inquisitive nature. Any relationship must be maintained. The\ncity wants it \u2013 it\u2019s all about you wanting it too. Bucharest makes me keep my mind clear. I love\nits subtle irony without excessive gravity and seriousness, as I learned it from the Russians. I like\nthe exchange of lines that I can hear only here, be they aggressive sometimes. I don\u2019t really like\naggressive mockery, but that may be my problem. I haven\u2019t tuned into a typical Bucharest\ninhabitant yet, my home is in the making here, but as long as I\u2019m here I love to explore the city\nand its people. Maybe one day it will become \u201cmy home\u201d forever. Because I love it and it\u2019s\nalready my child\u2019s home.<\/p>\n
For me, Bucharest meant the gateway to the Balkans and an infinite love for them.<\/p>\n
About people and boats. A story from Split, Croatia<\/p>\n
Last year I spent some time in \u201cexile\u201d in Split, Croatia. I discovered some notes while\nwaiting for a football championship grand final.<\/p>\n
Every day I take at least one walk along the harbour and the many jetties spread along the\ncoast of Split. It is about an hour\u2019s walk. I start from the left side, where big ships loaded with\ntourists and their cars dock. At precise hours, a ferry loaded with cars and people comes or\n\nleaves. It\u2019s always busy here. Huge cruise ships bring motley crowds. It\u2019s common mass tourism.\nIt involves more wealth than it does in Greece.<\/p>\n
A long area follows, facing the sea, part of the old centre. I see various small ships for short\ncruises around the islands or along the coast. They are for ordinary tourists, who come here for a\nfew days, to visit Split and take a one-day walk on the islands, part of a guided tour. The ships\nare full of families with children, youngsters and many elderly people.<\/p>\n
Split is expensive for young people who come from not so rich families. The Scandinavians\ndominate. The Brits make the background noise: they speak louder than everyone else. At night\nthey are unstoppable: they scream so loud they scare even the drunken Russians.<\/p>\n
Next comes a small, secluded cove where expensive, though not very large, yachts are\nmoored. There are fewer people here, even on the pontoon. On the yachts you usually see one or\ntwo couples \u2013 most of them about 50 or 60 years old \u2013 drinking, partying in silence or doing\nsome work. Judging by their yacht, the way they dress, move or speak, they are upper middle\nclass. Their yacht is very expensive, even if it\u2019s rented, their clothes are all branded and they talk\nas if they gave PowerPoint presentations even when they crack jokes. Their daughters look like\nmodels posing for fashion magazines. You won\u2019t see children here. And, yes, they have bodies\nshaped after the social Neo-Darwinist pattern: the boss of office proletarians must be superior in\neverything. A superior salary is earned by a superior mind in a superior body. They are the new\nstandard in their world. It is interesting that even when they come here, they tend to wear\ncorporate-style uniforms slightly adapted to vacation days. In the evening, when they get tipsy,\nthey leave their superiority complex and uniform aside and become ordinary people, but the\ncorporate style makes them boring even when they are drunk. That\u2019s the sad part.<\/p>\n
Next comes the weirdest part. The area where the most luxurious yachts are moored. I\u2019m\ntalking about yachts \u00e0 la Abramovici. They really look like huge jewels. Very impressive. Each\nmore spectacular than the next. There are but a few and new ones come every day. Obviously,\nthis \u201cexotic\u201d stopover is too cheap for them. They probably navigate in waters as deep as their\nowners\u2019 money-stuffed pockets. On their way to \u201cparadise\u201d. Their owners are among the\nprivileged 1% of the world. But this is not their story. What strikes you here is the lack of crew\nand passengers. All ships are crowded, even those not so luxurious, but here you don\u2019t see\nanybody. In 30 days, I didn\u2019t see a soul. Only once I saw a man from the staff wiping something\ndown there. Otherwise, the yacht was deserted. Where were the people? Such a navigating\nmachine needs servants, cooks, sailors, technicians, etc. It can carry an army of millionaires.\nWhere are they? Are they really invisible? I\u2019ve heard of the ghost ship myth, but here the ship is\nvisible and only the crew members are ghosts. They are invisible. I must admit that I haven\u2019t\nbeen able to penetrate the mystery of the invisible luxury class members. Perhaps they only show\nthemselves to the chosen ones.<\/p>\n
Now comes the last cove, that of the proletarian fishermen. You can only see them very\nearly in the morning, when they go out to sea, or when they come back with fish. Their boats are\nso small and dilapidated that you wonder how brave they must be to go out to sea every day.\n\nMost boats look like slightly larger bathtubs. Compared to the huge yachts I\u2019ve just mentioned,\nthey are like walnut halves next to a whale. These fishermen bear the brunt: they have a very\nhard, exhausting and risky job. They are the ones who feed the bulk of the residents and tourists\nin the area. Their pockets, however, seem to be almost empty. You can tell this by how they\nlook, what they drink, and most of all, what boats they have. The market is rougher than the sea\nwith them. In Aldulescu\u2019s words, \u201cPhysical work, work in general can save you from many\nthings, but not from poverty.\u201d It is a pleasure to talk, eat and drink with these people. They are\nvisible and have time for you.<\/p>\n
This is what I saw day by day, for a whole month, while I walked on that part of the port. On\nthe way home, I kept thinking about the mystery of the \u201cinvisible people living in the lap of\nluxury\u201d. About those huge, but empty floating jewels. About the contrast between opulence and\nthe conspicuous absence of their staff, of their people. And about the fishermen and their\nramshackle boats. And suddenly I remembered the image of some refugees on an invisible boat.\nA bunch of desperate mothers, children, old and young people on the verge of drowning, adrift in\na boat. An invisible boat. With very visible and worried people, who would have needed a bigger\nboat. And the boat they needed was moored somewhere in a \u201ccivilised\u201d port without people.\nPeople and boats. Visible and invisible.<\/p>\n
Turkey and our Balkan intimacy<\/p>\n
I discovered Turkey only later. Much later. In my personal imagery there was a medieval\nTurkey \u2013 one that I knew about from chronicles and history lessons, all my knowledge about it\nbeing passed through the filter of the Russian imperial education and its utopian nostalgia for a\nlost Byzantinism that needed to be recovered.<\/p>\n
The Romanians raised in the Russian Empire have a knowledge gap when it comes to the\noriental sense that reaches us via the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire. This oriental gap is also\nspecific to the area beyond the mountains, the Romanians raised in the Habsburg Empire.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, there is a big difference from the two above-mentioned oriental gaps. Whereas\nthe Habsburgs prepare you to hate the Orient and the Slavs cover it up with a positive element,\nthis part of the world presents it as sophisticated and subtle; here the Orient it is positivized, not\nnegativized as in the Habsburg Empire, especially since it is also obscured by Byzantinism \u2013\nByzantium as a model, be it perverted.<\/p>\n
In this sense, the Orient is seen not as something bad in itself, but as something \u201cobscured\u201d\nby a sophisticated and subtle, yet different and dangerous form of culture: the historical Oriental\n\u201ccunning\u201d.<\/p>\n
When I first arrived in Bucharest, I was shocked by the orientalism of this city. I had only\nencountered orientalism in the Caucasus, Middle Asia and Central Asia.<\/p>\n
In my familiar area \u2013 Chi\u0219in\u0103u, Odessa, Chernivtsi, Kiev \u2013 there is neither Orient nor\nBalkans. All this complicated bazaar is non-existent, although my Budjak is close to Orientalism\n\n\u2013 we lived with Christianised Turks for hundreds of years. Slavism erased this layer, but certain\natavistic elements have remained and they come back when you least expect them.<\/p>\n
In Bucharest, however, Orientalism is striking for anyone who comes from beyond the\nmountains or the Prut. The difference is huge. It hits you hard.<\/p>\n
That is why I often say that Bucharest is probably the most oriental city in the EU. But this\nis a good thing. I was brought up to be fascinated by the Orient and to appreciate it even though I\nfear it as a \u201csly\u201d force of history that I cannot control.<\/p>\n
My Bessarabian friends and I often laugh at the Bucharest-style \u201corientalism\u201d. The \u201cI\u2019ll be\nback in a minute\u201d phrase pulls you out of the Western order, where it means something\ncompletely different. I discovered Turkey after my oriental experience in southern Romania. I\nmet Istanbul after Bucharest.<\/p>\n
I discovered Turkey after my oriental experience in southern Romania. I\nmet Istanbul after Bucharest.<\/p>\n
When I first arrived in Istanbul after my Bucharest experience, I realised something: \u201cLittle\nParis\u201d is an elitist invention based on an old model of self-colonization. No, Bucharest is not\n\u201cLittle Paris\u201d, it is \u201cLittle Istanbul\u201d. In Istanbul I had a strong sense of familiarity \u2013 from the\nsmell in the air to how people behaved. Everything was so intimate.<\/p>\n
In Istanbul I had a strong sense of familiarity \u2013 from the\nsmell in the air to how people behaved. Everything was so intimate.<\/p>\n
Turkey is probably the country we feel closest to us. It gives us the feeling of \u201cbeing at\nhome\u201d outside our traditional space. Except for the language, the culture and the religion, a\nRomanian coming from southern Romania, Bucharest in particular, feels more at home in\nIstanbul than in Chi\u0219in\u0103u.<\/p>\n
Sometimes we don\u2019t realize the huge role played by the Turks in our history and historical\ndevelopment. Istanbul had a more important role in our political, social and identity evolution\nthan Paris or Berlin. Even our state is more of a Turkish or Ottoman \u201cproduct\u201d; the Turks\ncertainly played a key role in this. There are historians who can explain this quite well, albeit in\nwhispers.<\/p>\n
The fact that we, \u201chistorical upstarts\u201d, want to erase and forget this trying and make up\n\u201ccivilized\u201d genealogies is stupid and harms us. It is better to settle for what we have, especially\nsince our Ottoman legacy is rather complex and by no means \u201cinferior\u201d.<\/p>\n
I remember how it was when I first moved to a small Turkish Muslim town. It was autumn \u2013\nmy God, it smelled like at my grandma\u2019s \u2013 roasted peppers, dumata, paprika. The oil from the\nfried g\u00f6zleme. It was exactly like home.<\/p>\n
And when the muezzin in the mosque started to pray, it\nsounded exactly like the mass in the churches of Bucharest \u2013 the oriental lament. At home,\nacross the Prut, they sing in the Slavic polyphonic style, but in Bucharest, in the Eastern\nchurches, you don\u2019t know whether you hear a priest or a muezzin. It\u2019s like at home.<\/p>\n
I was thinking about this while pondering over the tragedy that the Turks are going through.\nMaybe suffering brings us closer \u2013 to stand in solidarity, to help each other in the things that\nmatter.<\/p>\n
I love Turkey and Istanbul is by far the most important European city at the moment. This is\nhow I feel, although many sleeping monsters wake up there as well.<\/p>\n
It is a pity that we know each other less and less and the connections between us are\ndisappearing. Our Orientalism is a great heritage that we owe mostly to the Turks. Why give it\nup? In exchange for what?<\/p>\n
Music and people. What tender rock is played on the Dalmatian Coast\u2026<\/p>\n
I am on Bosanska, up the street from the synagogue, at the top corner of Diocletian\u2019s Palace\nin Split. In front I see a small square, a Catholic church and a small park. On the left, a gallery.\nBehind, a small mosque. On the right, a narrow street with famous taverns. Music is coming\nfrom all sides. I won\u2019t say anything about the English who howl regularly at 4 a.m. sharp.<\/p>\n
In the park at the end of the square, local bands play two or three times a week. Second-class\nprovincial mainstream rock. But it\u2019s genuine. No worse than our first-class rock. I can hear\nmusic from the art gallery, which has a tavern where the \u201celite\u201d gathers: artists pretending to be\nrich, corporatists pretending to be educated, etc. You know what it is like, every fashionable city\nhas them. The music is good, it doesn\u2019t bother you, it stops at 12 p.m. precisely. Civilisation...<\/p>\n
The street with many taverns does not disturb me. I am protected by walls, so all I hear is\nmuffled noises. But at night I go out to see the \u201cfauna\u201d. In about five taverns, a kind of hipsters\nfrom around the world gather together. The Scandinavians prevail, for obvious financial reasons.\nThey are like \u201cmini-Control\u201d. Between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m., the very narrow street is blocked. The\natmosphere is invigorating. Most people are about 30, some are 50 and mimic adolescence.\nInside the palace, some singers are always singing syrupy folk music. Their audience is over\n50+, meditative and sentimental. They sit politely on the steps like at school, resigned to their\nfate.<\/p>\n
For me, the most interesting thing is the music from the lower part of the city, four minutes\naway from me, on the seashore. Here there is a stage where they sing \u201cfor the rest\u201d. All kinds of\nmusic: folk, choral, pop and rock. The pop pieces remind me of Jugoton (a TV station that plays\npop & rock from the Yugoslav period): a mixture of Soviet disco, German pop, where the kitsch\nmust be brought to the fore, and Balkan influences with oriental elements. Great, like in spa\nresorts. I love it\u2026<\/p>\n
For all that, the rock bands are the best. The singers are seniors who only play covers\nversions. Four old, long-haired instrumentalists dressed like old-school rockers (leather, cowboy\nboots and headscarves), moving like the stars of the 70s. The two slightly younger female\nvocalists\u2019 voices are hoarse from alcohol and tobacco, but they know how to sing and their\nbodies look OK in the dim light. And they also move nicely.<\/p>\n
They sing cover after cover. The show is a bit sad, but the covers are good, sometimes better\nthan the original. In this place, the singers seem better than the original band: they spare you the\nVIP aura. They don\u2019t lie to you. And their show is free. The climax. The song ends. People stop\ndancing and applaud sincerely. Two 6 or 7-year-old children approach the stage and shout,\n\u201cMommy, you were good, bravo!\u201d The rocker mom comes closer, kisses them and goes back on\n\nstage: \u2018Hey Joe, where you goin\u2019 with that gun of yours?\u2019 What a sweet moment\u2026 Oh,\nJugoton\u2026<\/p>\n
The smell of Sarajevo<\/p>\n
One autumn I stayed in Sarajevo. I went out and felt a unique, unforgettable smell from my\nchildhood. Roasted peppers with tomatoes and garlic. In autumn, it smells likes this everywhere\nin the Balkans. I was born in a different part of the Balkans, in Budjak, but the smell was the\nsame.<\/p>\n
In the Budjak area, autumns are very beautiful, the fields and the vine leaves turning copper.\nThe nights are colder, but you can still sleep in the \u201cpolog\u201d (swathe) in the yard, if you cover\nyourself with a thicker \u201ciorgan\u201d (quilt).<\/p>\n
On such nights, the sky is very clear. The moon and the stars shine so brightly that you can\ncross any road or path without a lantern. You don\u2019t even know if the nights are white or the days\nare dark. The clearest sign that autumn has arrived in the region is neither the changing colours\nof the landscapes, nor the sun, redder and bigger, nor the cool, moonlit nights and the bright stars\non the dark sky, but the smell that envelops all the villages and hamlets in the region. Once you\nhave discovered it, you will never forget.<\/p>\n
It is the aroma of grape bunches and vine leaves crushed together, which is sweet at first and\nin sweet-sour after a few days, announcing that the \u201ctulburel\u201d (young wine) has started to \u201cboil\u201d\nand that the \u201cmust\u201d (freshly crushed grape juice) is already \u201cboiling\u201d. Soon, in people\u2019s cellars,\nthe \u201cmust\u201d will ferment and turn into fresh wine, the joy of the peasant, the merchant and the\ndrunkard. This is the \u201cgood news\u201d for those people. People full of life, who change their faces\nand clothes in autumn. Only the sectarians, puritans who disliked alcohol \u2013 this scourge and\nmortal sin, as they called it \u2013 would not share it. But the smell, that smell, we all loved, year after\nyear and generation after generation. To understand its charm, the whole process, which is much\nmore complicated, must be explained. It starts with picking the fruit, when your hands become so\nsticky and black from the dust that settles hard to the skin, that you feel as if you were wearing\nrubber gloves. It goes on with the fermenting, the pressing, and the washing of the barrels and\nends with the sheltering of the filled barrels in the cold cellars.<\/p>\n
In addition to this unmistakable aroma, here you could also enjoy a smell specific to the\nseason: the autumn smoke. In this season, when you cross the fields of Budjak or Bessarabia,\nyou see piles of leaves and branches smoking day and night. They smoulder with a bluish wisp\nthat joins the earth and the sky in a lascivious belly dance of an odalisque. This smell is unique\nand memorable, a mixture of dry leaves, twigs and plants that the peasants burn in their gardens.\nA great Russian philosopher who once travelled through the area called it balkanski d\u00eemok,\nBalkan smoke. We were not yet in the Balkans, we were just a gate that the Slavic traveller went\nthrough on his way to the Balkans. But the smell was divine.<\/p>\n
The bell \u2013 its current medieval sound: Sarajevo \u2013 Timi\u0219oara<\/p>\n
In Sarajevo I discovered the sound. The imam\u2019s prayer reminded me of the soft oriental\nliturgies in Bucharest. The moment the prayer began, I felt at home among Muslims, as I had\namong the Romanian Eastern Orthodox Christians. It was the same in Timi\u0219oara: the dialogue of\nthe Catholic and the Serbian Orthodox bells makes me believe that here is another part of the\nBalkans.<\/p>\n
In Timi\u0219oara I have the privilege of staying behind the Catholic Cathedral in Union Square. I\nknow, it\u2019s a big step from the flea market \u2013 the ocsko in Mehala neighbourhood \u2013, but we\u2019re\nadapting.<\/p>\n
The story is different now: every day I am \u201cdisturbed\u201d by the sounds of the bells. I haven\u2019t\nexperienced this in a long time. They ring so often. I really like their sound: in the morning, at\nnoon \u2013 the famous Catholic bells ringing at noon \u2013 and in the evening. Our Orthodox brothers\ndon\u2019t ring the bells rhythmically every day. I was brought up \u201csterile\u201d, with a different kind of\nsound, vocal, instrumental \u2013 I\u2019m not used to bell sounds, although I can still hear the Orthodox\nones.<\/p>\n
But it is a sound that somehow comes from ancient times, the kind that wants to convey a\nmeaning, to make a point. No one knows what exactly, but it carries with it the aura of a long\nforgotten archaic sense.<\/p>\n
The petty bourgeoisie and the middle class enjoy the sun on the terraces in Unirii Square,\nhipsters and artists hang out in the cultural area, and suddenly at 12 o\u2019clock, ding-dong!, a\ncrystalline sound conquers the square. A clear sound of multiple bells with different tonalities,\nharmonized and rhythmic, radically changes the soundscape. Any new-rhythm techno DJ is\ntaken aback: how do they make it, how do they produce it? It is from another world, very\ndifferent from the sounds of our contemporary material world. There is a historicity of the sound,\nwhich is closely related to the matter, objects and beings that produce it.<\/p>\n
The countryside produces a certain type of sounds that are much closer to nature: rustling,\nbellowing, bleating, barking. All these sounds are nice and have their own smell \u2013 they are\nsmelly sounds.<\/p>\n
The industrial age comes with its own sounds: the siren, the locomotive, the factory, the\nplant sounding mechanical and metallic.<\/p>\n
The industrial age comes with its own sounds: the siren, the locomotive, the factory, the\nplant sounding mechanical and metallic.<\/p>\n
The radio and the television have their sounds, beyond those they reproduce. Before the\nremote control appeared, the channel was changed with a sound familiar to my generation, just\nas the sound of a cassette tape being \u201cswallowed\u201d by a tape recorder is a leitmotif of my\ngeneration: we would use a pencil or pen to fix what could still be fixed.<\/p>\n
The new digital technology has no sound \u2013 it can only reproduce a sound, simulacra of\nsounds. Tapping a number to launch a call can no longer make the dial-phone sound, but it can\nreproduce it.<\/p>\n
The immateriality of sound through reproduction greatly changes our type of emotion and\nperception. Is this good? Is this bad? I have no idea. I have always advocated for the coexistence\n\nof all sounds, all practices. In other words, we should produce new sounds without giving up the\nold ones.<\/p>\n
In this sense, the ringing of bells has exactly this function of \u201chistoricizing\u201d the sound. It is\nthe sound that generations and generations have heard for hundreds of years. It is about the only\nthing that connects us not only to our great-great-grandparents, but also to each other. It is a\npublic sound that we all recognize. It is the sound that makes us contemporary with each other,\nin solidarity with each other without realizing it \u2013 but it works beyond our awareness.<\/p>\n
This is what I call the power of matter, the design of matter, which is often more formative\nthan non-material power. Forgive me, I work on infrastructure and its social, cultural and\npolitical functions. And I don\u2019t joke about sound and smell.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
La un scriitor rus \u2013 Leontev – am citit c\u00e2nd eram mai t\u00e2n\u0103r despre\u00a0balkanski d\u00eemok\u00a0– fum balcanic: care miroase \u00eentr-un fel. Toamna t\u00e2rziu, c\u00e2nd str\u0103ba\u021bi c\u00e2mpiile Bugeacului sau ale Basarabiei, vezi gr\u0103mezi de frunze \u0219i crengi care fumeg\u0103 zi \u0219i noapte. Ard mocnit, cu un firicel de fum alb\u0103strui, care une\u0219te p\u0103m\u00e2ntul \u0219i cerul \u00eentr-un […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[42],"class_list":["post-7263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eseu-2023","tag-vasile-ernu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7263"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7491,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7263\/revisions\/7491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}