Big Data Analysis shows: Male vs. Female Disballance in Arts

Just for fun, and because the time between the years (i.e. 25th of December till 6th of January) generates silly ideas, I tried my first big data analysis today. I was inspired by the frequent notion of woman curating arts exhibitions. Was it just my selective perception, or is there something real behind ?
I used a public German website that provides information on all arts exhibitions during a selected time period. The site http://www.kunstausstellungen.de/suche/ I searched for all exhibitions between 01.01.2018 – 31.12.2018. I got a long list (perhaps still anything from complete) of 210 events, covering private galeries, municipal exhibiton halls and big and famous museums of national and international fame. Of those 210 exhibitions, 181 could be associated with a single artist (the remaining 29 were group exhibitions). Counting the male and female artists, these are the results:

144 male artists (79.6 %)
37 female artists (20.4 %).

 The common (PC) interpretation of such a gender inequality is always, that men in their networks support each other, and restrict access of the talented woman.

Well, we all know who selects the artists to be exhibit in museums and galeries, and these are the above mentioned curators.

Thanks god, at least for some of the 210 exhibitions, also the names of the curators are listed in www.kunstausstellungen.de. But in particular the big and famous institutions (like Munich Pinakothek, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Museum Ludwig Koeln etc) don’t like to give names. But of the 123 exhibitions were the curators are known, the picture of male versus females looks almost like a mirror image to than what I see for the artists. Here the gender distribution is as following:

34 male curators (27.5%)
89 female curators (72.5%).

In a nice graphic as the consulting folks do it their whole life through, it looks like this:

Distribution of men and woman among artists and curators of 210 randomly selected exhbitions in Germany (2018)
   Distribution of men and woman among artists and curators of 210 randomly selected exhbitions in Germany (2018)
So this simple analysis easily disproves that male decision makers (i.e. curators) are responsibility for a larger presence of male artists in public life. At least in Germany, and at least in the year 2018, there must be another reason for the imballance of male versus female artist. The same is also true for film directors, and even more for the conductors of orchestres or composers played in the concert hall.

Other interpretation are required, since if one wishes to reach an equal representation in the creative business of male and female actors, one has to understand the reasons for the current un-equallity. And at least the stereotypic explanation that influential men support only other men and at the same time suppress woman, seem to be vastly wrong.

Gorges and Tides

I know that what I am going to tell you now could fundamentally damage the picture that you have of me. I hope you will forgive me this unrequested confession. But I have to tell this to someone, who might view it from some distance, and who knows me only as a pen friend using e-mails. And I also think that because you don’t live an ordinary life, rather a life full of ups and downs, you might have a better understanding of me. I hope you will forgive me this uninvited confession.

Nine years ago I had a master student in my lab. She came to Munich from Stockholm/Sweden, because we are members of an international graduate school. Although being born in Stockholm, she was Iranian. Her name was Ghazal, and her parents were political emigrants from the 70s. I found her very attractive, physically and also because of a certain secret magic that emanated from her. If a young woman arrives as a stranger to a new place, she naturally inspires a man to offer her assistance and company. And for some reason, despite being about 20 years my junior, Ghazal soon agreed to go out with me not only once, but on a more and more regular base. We spend many afternoons and evenings together, visitting the galeries, the parks, many beautiful places, or just go out walking in the green or sitting on the river-side. I began to badly fall in love, and I seriously wanted to change my entire life, and asked her to marry me. If she would have not repeatedly denied, if she would have say only one time “maybe, lets wait for a while”, my life would have taken a completely different direction. In this year, 2010, I probably was really crazy. I was willing to sacrifice everything for the prospect to spend the rest of our life together. Nothing else seemed of any relevance any more: my family, our house, my friends, my job as scientist, even politics and the whole world suddenly became secondary, as compared to my love for this girl with her blue eyes, her dense eyebrows, her dark curled hair and her guttural voice.

But for Ghazal the relationship with her parents in Sweden was much more important, and she always felt homesick. For her it was simply unthinkable to start a new life far away from home. She was, in a certain sense, provincial and too much focused on continuing a life with a high level of security. And Sweden is of course the prototype of a super-secure society. At the end, when Ghazal finished her master project, she packed her suit-case, and after we said good-bye and exchanged kisses and hugs at the airport, I literally cried a river driving home alone.

In the following 3 years, we occasionally met aside of scientific meetings. We talked, and for me it was always painful to know that it is only for a few hours. Once in 2012, we spend a night walking through the empty Pompeij, what was most magical. But I still don’t know if she felt the same. I am quite sure that in Ghazals whole life, our visit to Pompeij was an experience of the the highest cultural and intellectual level. Probably at this night, she was not aware of this, but I am sure one day she will understand. I had hoped that instead of living together physically, we could at least stay in contact with words. But writing mails was not her biggest strength. She was very secretive regarding her feelings, and neither did she liked to tell lengthy episodes of her life. In fact, too often it was me who told her stories of her life, stories which I invented expromptu starting from just a few keywords that she told me. When she wrote something, it was usually restricted to a few sentences, and only touched superficial things. I always knew that in case I could have seduced her up to point to live together, I would have to educate her a lot in terms of culture and intellectual depth. I knew it would have been a “Eliza Dolittle and Professor Higgins” affair.

It took me about 5 years to get over the sadness that this loss has inflicted. And then suddenly the story seemed to start its 2nd series: I met an Iranian-Armenian girl who did her PhD project in another institute on our University campus. She was married in Germany, but lived virtually separate from a boring German husband. She was extremely lonely, and had some problems also with her colleagues and with her family ( who occasionaly came from Isfahan, but caused stress to each other).

We began to meet more and more often, and we both had our reasons to let things go freely. It did not took very long, when we started to take a hotel room only to sleep together. It became a very regular thing, that we had love at any occasion: in her appartment, in the appartment of her relatives, in the car, in hotel rooms. It was very exciting, and I always recognized that at the moments of ecstasy, Lidas face changed so much, that all the stessful tension went away and I could feel how her eyes were seeing something magical.

For me it was all nice as it was: We would meet once or twice a week for physical pleasure, but outside of the bedrooms we continued our own life.

But for Lida this was not enough. She required more and more that I make a decision in favour of het. I understoud her somehow, she was early thirty, with the science career lagging a bit behind, and a broken mariage behind. She was hoping that me, an 18 year old senior of her with an established position, could give her stabilit, probably by living with het and marrying her.

But what I was desperately wishing just 5 years before with Ghazal did not bear any attraction any more now with Lida. I don’t know, if I had changed so much within 5 years, or if it is a general phenomenon that men lose their interest in sharing their life with girl when they have already consumed love often enough. Maybe my years long heartache after Ghazal left was only, because we never consumed love, but had only a 1 year platonic romance.

So my advice to every girl or young woman from this story would be: dont give a man to quickly what he wants. Let him fight for your love hard. When a man had to fight a long battle to conquer you, he will always value you much higher. You will be like a rare jewel, which will always reminds him of the energy he had to spend on you. Like a miner who had to work a long and hard time to find a precious gem.

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Prague revisited

Well, Prague, this beautiful bohemian capital that stretches along the river Vlatva (Moldau), was perhaps always a place were time had a less defined and mechanical meaning, but was always a subject of being easily to manipulate. In the novels of Gustav Meyerink, Franz Kafka, Karol Capek or E.E.Kish time was more like a veil being blown around by the wind of history, rather than the irreversible counter of seconds or years as we see it in the industrial society with its Just-in-Time manufactures.

What I want to justify with this reasoning is the fact that our recent visit to Prague already was in October last year, but for some reason I only recovered the few pictures of this jurney today. But the city is so full of pleasure and lovely events that the memories on the few days we spend there are still very present.

I am also very pleased that now, 12 years after our last short visit to the city, the bad memories of having our car stolen including a lot of personal belongings, are completely eradicted and overwritten by nice impressions of the extremely rich cultural heritage, the relaxing atmosphere and the friendly people there.

Just one tiny detail: We went to Prague for a 5 days short visit accompanied by our lovely dog Ivo. And it was an absolute surprise to see how the Czech people are simple in love with dogs. So often people stopped buy, smiled to Ivo, told her some nice words of love or even asked us to carres her. Finally, all the stories in Jaroslav Hašeks “The Good Soldier Švejk” about stealing dogs on the street makes much more sense to me. The people their are ready to steal another owners dog not because they cannot afford to buy one, but because they might haven fallen so much in love with one, that they cannot sleep anymore but have to have right this one. So they “order the theft” of a defined dog at Svejk. In this sense, the Czech people carry some typical Eastern habits, considering that further in the Orient (like in Georgia, Azerbaidshan, or middle Asia) it is common by young men to “highjack and steal” the girl they are fallen in love with.

Here are the pictures of marvellous Prague.

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Prague

​Superlatively superficial

A while ago the famous, traditional London book store Hatchards organized a reading by a female writer, Laura Jane Williams, on the occasion of the release of her book BECOMING. Most of the stories she writes there are comprehended from her internet blog Superlatively Rude
I heard about the event at Hatchards on a radio program, and was interested. Therefore I searched for the original blog on the web. I should have been warned right away by all of its pink and creamy design and the hundreds + of unbearable selfies of the author. But having some spare time at a long railroad trip I started to read. And was shocked and disappointed by the shallow ideas of this blog, and in particular by realizing that even with an awful lack of english literacy it is possible today to find a publisher for a book in the UK.
The author, with an BA in english language, has no problems of writing sentences like
“… I did it when you called me your friend, too. You said you’d marvel at seeing me collect a BAFTA, one day, one day soon, and you’d say– but I interrupted you. You’ll say, oh hey! That chick sucked my dick back in the day! I supplied. You shook your head. I was going to say look! That girl is my friend! actually. I couldn’t tell if I’d hurt your feelings.
So I write on the note that I’m proud of you too, and wish you a happy housewarming because I’d shown up two days before empty-handed and full of intentions. When you text to say you got it and I finally get to exhale, you say it is thoughtful and cute and sweet and other words that don’t match who I am, and I explain to you: They’re succulents. Succulents are pretty, but low-maintenance. You know. For the busy man….”,  what somehow should have alerted the editor of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, unless they are going to develop a special label for schoolyard conversation. Its hilarious to read that with such a missing sense for proper English grammar L.J. Williams use to teach foreign kids in language schools.

blog  Superlatively Rude.

104 letters of solitude

When everyone else has left you, it is loneliness that you feel. But when you have left everyone, it will be solitude that you feel.
(by Alfred Polgar).

Sukkot

It is October, i.e. harvest time, and most religions use to celebrate this in different context. The German protestants call it “Erntedankfest”, the US protestants “Thanksgiving”, the ancient Persian zoroasts had their Mehregan (Mithra) feast.

But although it all has to do somehow with the joy of successful harvest, the focus is differently. The Americans start eating XXXXL meals of turkey, mashed pumkins etc as if tomorrow the famine would start again.  The Germans officially celebrate the grace of God who – admittedly – is responsible for all the fruits on the field and gardens, but deep inside they are proud that their protestant working ethics finally paid out.

Most of all types of harvest feast I like the jewish Sukkoth (feast of booths), because it involves constructing a nice, airy booth from organic material. This booth is called Sukkah, and you see it here in our garden, both at day light (immediately occupied and defended by our dog) and at night (with a lantern to illuminate it).

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I am sure that if their would be a higher diety, Jahve or Flying Spaghetti Monster or Allah (none of them has given me any evidence of their existence yet), he/she would most of all like the Jewish way of celebrating, since it has to do with a pioneer spirit rather than with passive devotion.

Philosophy goes Tinder

The term Philosophy – as we have all learned once in school – simply means “love of wisdom” (from the greek term φιλοσοφία). But wisdom is of course generated by people, and mostly it is also represented by living people. I don’t want to argue again with some religious hypocrites which come up with the idea that there is something like a “devine wisdom”. There is no such a think, and wisdom only developed from the first human beings when they understood that by approaching a deer against the direction of the blowing wind, chances are higher that the animal won’t recognice them.

Philosophy can be traced back at least to the 6th century BC in ancient Greek and probably much earlier than that in India or China. But at a certain point it becomes vague as what should be categorized as Philosophy.

And it took till 1998 when suddenly the modern society re-thought of this “love of wisdom”. In this year a user on the Livejournal blog invented the term Sapiosexual to describe not the love for wisdom, but the sexual attraction to a “wise” person.

In 2014 the dating site OKCupid made the term even more popular by including it on their list of sexual preferences, to give their users a more precise option when searching for a partner.

People who self-identify as sapiosexuals, or those who say intelligence is the most important sexual trait, are having a moment. Critics of the movement say it’s at best pretentious and at worst discriminatory.[from Steven Blum, Broadly]

This reminds me of the TV serie “Masters of Sex” , where Dr. William Master, a medical researcher of rather unspectecular physical features, unwillingly attracts the attention of his enchanting lab technician Virginia Johnson. Despite working in a hospital environment with plenty of handsom, well-build and self-confident men, Ms. Johnson becomes hopelessly devoted to Dr. Masters, who lives mainly in his world of diagrams, statistics and weired instruments that shall kick out all mystics from human love.
But it is not the very subject of Bill Masters work, that made him so irresistable for Mrs. Johnson, but it is his very character. He could probably study the morphology of cactus thorns or the frequency of thunderstorms with the same devotion as he did his sex-studies, and still would attract some girl as Ms. Johnson. Sapiosexuality, as represented by her in this TV Serie, is perhaps a rather new classifier in the field of reseach because it is a non-exclusive term. This means that one can be highly attracted by an intelligent person, and at the same time be gay, hetero, lesbian, SM etc. But others aren’t so convinced and argue that being attracted to intelligence doesn’t qualifiy as a sexual orientation, and that by self-labeling as sapiosexual one is simply discriminating other person based on their class, educational record or their abilities.
Steven Blum writes in Broadly: Put simply, a sapiosexual is someone who finds intelligence to be the most important sexual trait— the kind of person who quotes Sylvia Plath in bed or, on the other end of the spectrum, argues about microeconomics on a first date. The term was allegedly coined by a top-hatted LiveJournal user named wolfieboy, “while on too little sleep driving up from SF in the summer of ’98.” But since its inclusion by OkCupid, the identity has gone mainstream: This past month, Merriam Webster announced it was debating whether or not to include it in the next edition of their dictionary. Meanwhile, a new dating app called Sapio would like to help you shoo away potential suitors who can’t quote Sartre on command.

It’s beautiful when you find someone that wants to undress your conscience and make love to your thoughts

Whatever the intention, though, the label has certainly stuck. On OKCupid, 9,000 users identify as sapiosexual. The sexual “identity” also boasts a Facebook page and numerous photos on Tumblr that seem to link sexual and intellectual pleasure — one image hashtagged “sapiosexual” shows a brain being fingerbanged; another depicts a man reading a book while doing it doggy style. Other users post quotes like, “It’s beautiful when you find someone that wants to undress your conscience and make love to your thoughts.”

Expanding the spectrum of sexual orientations to include sapiosexuality might make those who cream their pants while reading dissenting opinions from Ruth Bader Ginsberg or the latest N+1 feel affirmed, but desiring smart partners isn’t a unique or non-normative preference. According to Lora Adair, a professor of evolutionary psychology at Lyon College, men and women have always craved intelligence in mates, whether they go out of their way to identify as a sapiosexual or not.

“When it comes to identifying traits we perceive as ‘necessities’ when searching for long-term mates, men and women of varying sexual orientations tend to put intelligence and kindness above other sexually attractive attributes, such as physical attractiveness,” Adair said.

This is true across species, although in non-human animals, “intelligence,” or cognitive ability, is “measured morphologically,” she said.

“Take the male bowerbird, which constructs elaborate ‘homes’ adorned with brightly colored, scarce objects from their environments to attract ‘choosy’ females,” Adair said. “The ability to find these scarce objects, and protect against the theft or sabotage of other males may serve as indicators of cognitive ability, and overall genetic fitness.”

Adair believes the rise of sapiosexuality can at least partially be explained by the blurring of lines between “nerd culture” and the mainstream. “What were once fringe interests reserved for the stereotypically introverted, intellectual, ‘nerds’ of the world— comic books, characters, and comic-inspired films and TV shows, Sci-Fi and fantasy like The Star Trek reboots and Game of Thrones—are now essential features of 21st century American culture,” she says.

You’re not attracted to intelligence, you’re repulsed by disability !

But the identity has also provoked a backlash among those who see it as a way to discriminate against potential suitors based on ability and class. As one Tumblr user put it,“Sapiosexuality/romanticism is a bunch of ableist bullshit[.] You’re not attracted to intelligence[,] you’re repulsed by disability.”
Others see the label as limiting the conversation around intelligence. In a Buzzfeed quiz titled “Are You Actually A Sapiosexual,” one of the questions literally asks readers whether they’re “repulsed by the idea of having sex with someone who had never gone to college, or had no interest in higher education,” seemingly normalizing the idea that it’s okay to discriminate against those who don’t have college degrees or explicitly academic aspirations.
This is reductive for obvious classist reasons but also because intelligence comes in various forms; furthermore, discriminating against suitors because they didn’t spend four years accumulating debt isn’t an identity or a sexual orientation, it’s a limiting preference deserving of scrutiny.

The bias also doesn’t need to be codified because it is innate. At one point, intelligence was a quality that “helped our ancestors in their forging of social bonds and alliances, their abilities to forage for food, shelter and safety, as well as their abilities to use tools or solve problems in ancestral environments,” according to Adair, and it is something we still read as incurring short term benefits, like higher earning potential, and long term benefits, including more genetically “fit” offspring.

Taking this natural bias and making it your dating identity is superfluous. And, of course, it arguably makes you look like a pretentious asshat.

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Wet Dreams

Sorry that you opened this post expecting to read some adult content. I have to tell you right away you wont find what you expect, unless you are interested in psychology, in particular in the archetypical fear that I occasionally experience. I indeed talk about fear, rather than anxiety, even though anxiety is a more common issue in psychology or psychatric disporders. I am probably anything else than a candidate for a psychatric studie, and the fact that I am to clearly describe and evaluate how a rather surreal fear can take hold of me is perhaps the best evidence for this. Anxiety is something very common here in Germany (“German Angst”), and right now several proponents of radical political changes misuse the susceptibility of the German population for diffuse anxieties.

But fear is by definition something specific, related to a particular object. In my case this object is the base for all life: WATER. And there comes the wet dreams into play, which I will describe shortly. But to write in a chronological order, I have to start with something that struck me half an hour ago.

Sitting in my office and doing some correction work on a students thesis I suddenly felt an unpleasant sensation. Goose bumps, muscle stiffness, cold sweat, and a feeling of unsafety amidst my most common work environment (and despite a supermodern electronic entrance security system which our research centers management has recently installed). So where came this irrational feeling of discomfort from ?  Outside the office there was apparently just the usual noise of people talking about institutes issues, roaring coffee machines, slapping doors, high heeled technicians strutting along the hallway. Nothing special. Except there was occasionally a silent splatter sound. This was new, and perhaps it would have got completely unrecognized, unless one has a particular high sensitivity for it. It appeared that the cleaning personal used a new kind of wet cloth today to wipe the floor. And when they rinsed this wet cloth in a water bucket, it made this typical splattering noise, as if you pure water from a cup into a filled bathtube.  I can not blame the poor cleaning guy for intentionally causing unpleasant sensations on me. Of course his biggest concern was to keep the institute in a tidy condition, which most people consider of uttermost importance for their personal well being.

But in this particular case I seem to be the collateral victim of his cleaning work. Don’t get me wrong, I usually like splattering water. I like to take a shower, watch water fountains, jump from the highest diving tower into unknown waters or irrigate the garden and careless dogs or people with a water hose. But I hate water that is floating around, uncontrolled and occupying areas that should be dry.

Therefore, the worst pictures that I saw in the news recently were the flooded streets, houses and basements in Huston/Tx. The number of casualities after the hurrican Harvey was not very high, but the pictures made it deep into the very ancient areas of my mind (brainstem and amygdala). Simply the imagination of water that rises more and more, that can not be stopped worries me much more than the imagination of a fire, an earthquake or an avelanche, all of which are usually more life threatening than a flooding (unless you go to the extremes of a tsunami).

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Huston/Texas after the August 2017 flooding by hurrican Harvey

I discovered a long time ago that there must be an archetypical fear deeply written in my inconscious memory, a fear of rising and floating water. This is when I have “Wet Dreams”, which I should better call “Wet Nightmares” (but “Wet Dreams” definitely attract much more traffic to my blog). Dreams in which I wade through some centimeters of water in our house or appartment, where the water comes from some cracked pipes or a defunct washing machine, when the “basis of all living matter” simply follows the laws of gravity and quickly soaks all floors and walls down to the basement, eager to find a tiny gap through which it can leak further down into the unknown, such visions make me sweating cold and can temporarily undermine my universal convidence in the general harmony of the universe.

And of course, in the long term, I will be right. The Texas flooding after hurrican Harvey will dry again, and even from the mythological flood described in the Epic of Gilgamesh (and later transcribe into the old testament) little is to be seen nowadays except of beautiful beaches and peaceful orchestrated waves. According to archaeologists Ryan and Pitman the great deluge happened at around 5600 AD in the Black Sea basin.  And I can not imagine a time that gives me more “peace of mind” than sitting there on the beach, observing how well behaving the water is that splatters around my feet, reading a book and thinking 7617 years back in time, when the torrents broke through the bosphorus and turned a former sweet water epicontinental lake into what is today the Black Sea.

At the Black Sea coast, near Varna/Bulgaria. 7617 years ago the great deluge happened right here.

Of course my peace of mind can only be spoiled if somewhere behind me an unlocalized sound of splatter happens. But this in fact might come from some other tourists, who can not sit there quietly, watch the sea, read a book, drink a cocktail, but who have to start some water construction work.

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Macho man on the beach can not stop to reshape the landscape. Or are they also afraid of flooding water ?

Balkan revisited

Stereotypes use to reproduce themselves with almost the same regularity as the ignorance against the objects of these stereotypes increases. The Balkan region of South-eastern Europe is one such example. In the expectations of many westerners, Balkan countries are synonymous with corruption, failing nations, centuries of civil war, and headache by to much of low quality spirits.
For the Britons was the prospect of having more countries from the Balkan peninsula in the EU reason enough to leave the union all together. And if you tell someone from Croatia, Romania or Greece how much you like the Balkanesque wildness of their countries, you might be lucky if be entitled persona-non-grata there. And for Germans and Austrians it was the Balkan conflict that started the mother of all disasters in their history, the first World War.
To my knowledge there is only one country that takes this stereotype as a challenge and is trying to exploit the undeniable, instead of faking the facts. Bulgaria, in fact is in the very center of the Balkan peninsula. And like the eye of the hurricane is always a very quiet spot surrounded by devastating storms on the periphery harbours Bulgaria in its West-Eastern perimeter the most picturesque mountains that gave the whole region its name (Balkan mountains, locally called Stara Planina or historically Hemus).

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But despite this geographically very prominent role of Bulgaria didn’t it fit much of the bad connotations of a Balkan countries: Neither was it involved in any nationalistic segregational movements, nor had it any issues with religious heterogeneity.  It used to absorb people from other countries who were expelled as a result of civil war (like Russian aristocrats after the revolution) or genocide (like the turkish Armenians). During the time of fascism, the Bulgarian people successfully resisted the request of the german occupants to deport the sephardic jewish population. In gratitude of this, Israeli survivors of the Holocaust recently honoured this courage by erecting a monument in the form of a jewish shoufa in the city of Varna.

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The city of Varna has more reasons to look with great pride on its history. The eldest European civilizations left evidence of their early agricultural communities here (in Ezerovo and Debna), where rich burial sites were excavated that contained the earliest man-made golden artefacts.

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It is a tragedy, and here maybe indeed reminiscent of Balkanesque  indifference, that these two sites of prehistoric settlements (dating back to ca. 5000 AD) is hidden now and partly demolished under a socialist-era chemical plant.

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For archaeologic sites that link Bulgaria to the Roman history (when it was the province of Thrakia), in particular when they are found in the capital Sofia, the authorities are a bit more careful. The excavation works are done under public observation behind transparent walls.

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But to makes aware that we are really in the middle of the Balkan region we can find here (on the railway between Varna and Sofia) the only trainstation worlwide that is simply called Balkan.

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Fading hostility

On our way from the railway station in Lakatnik to our cottage on the feet of the Balkan mountains we always pass two premisses that stand side on side to each other, but are seperated by a barbwired fence. To the family on the left side, Iwan and Koprinka and their daughters we are frequently invited. Iwan worked most of his life in a nearby Uranium mine, and now suffers from Parkinson disease. The most exciting event in his life was in 1968, when he was recruited to the Bulgarian Peoples Army to help defend the socialist case in Prague against the democratic freedom movement.

Koprinka, his wife, is always makes jokes on him each time Ivan invents a new story about his braveness. She had a good education, but rarely found a way out of the hardships of the village life. Now all the duties lay on her, the work with the garden, the big house, farmland around, and supporting her two daughters. Only when she goes to pastures the goat in the hills, she finds some quiet moments. She usually takes with her a paperback book or a newspaper and dreams away, while her animals pick to most aromatic herbs.

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The house to the right looks almost like a mirror image of Iwan and Koprinkas place, except that the garden is a bit more planned and kept clean, and the attached garage and shed for the equipment looks simply more civilized. This house belongs to Iwans brother Kyrill (“Kirtscho”) and his family. The sad thing is that the two families are bound by a long lasting hostiliy, the neighbors say that the brothers had a legal issue on the land that they inherited from their parents. Property in Bulgaria is traditionally the most important asset of everyone, be it farmland, houses in the countryside, a weekend cottage or an apartment in the city. I have rarely met people somewhere else who are so obsessed with keeping or increasing the real estate property as in Bulgaria. It is quite common that children get their first apartment as a gift when they pass the higher education. And when a boy marries a girl, their biggest concern is not so much the dress or the party or the wedding cake. The biggest issue is how to merge the properties of the two in the best and most profitable manner.

One can easily imagine how complicate things become after a divorce or when property is inherited to several children. Something in the regard must have caused a big dispute between the two brothers, an issue so dramatic and irresolvable that neither of their two families talks to the others. At least this is how it looked untill recently. But now the generation of Iwan and Kirtscho’s grandchildren already grow up. There is Ivailo, the 8 year old son of Iwans daughter Monika, and on the other side of the fence is Nevena, the granddaughter of Kirtscho. These two cousins seem to be pretty resistant to the hostiliy between the parents and grandparents of both family branches. Instead, because on this spot of the village there are not many other kids to play with, so the two seem to use every moment to meet at the two sides of the fence. They don’t look up, so they can’t see the awful barbwire (“botliva tela”), but they only have eyes and ears for each other. They can sit their for hours and entertain each other. They have not heared about the issue of real estate property, and perhaps they think that the high fences between their places are only there to keep away Koprinkas goats from the neighbours cabage plantation, and protect Koprinkas chicken from the neighbors young dogs.