It was so quite and people just started to post things after they finished the final drafts of their articles. It is same with me, but there are so many things that are going around at the moment.

So for the begining let’s share soething about research.
It is so good feeling that after a months of work, thousands of kilometers travelled, tons of interviews and talks I do feel so filled and happy. I’m glad that everything is almost finished and with Anna’s help I’m satisfied with final results. Ok, I have the material to make a book, but I just need to be in contact with reality. Somehow I succeeded to manage all things at the end. I still can not believe it. I used the structure I made before writing the research and mostly it worked.

I love this blog, maybe I can start something writen, not only photobloging.

And in the meantime these days I enjoy in great movies at Zagreb Film Festival. I can see the book and research presented on this happening. It would be soo interesting. It is funny that Serbian movie “Klopka” (”Trap”) is leading by the votes of public. Funny cause everything is about what I wrote about and that could be one of the arguments in my research.

And I didn’t forgot. I own you some photos from Sarajevo, and here are some of them. Please note that everything is developed and produced manualy by ME ;))

I’ve been so shy about blogging so far that it’s just embarrassing. In fact, I’ve got tons of bloggable material, but didn’t publish it. Since there is no excuse for that, I’ve thought up some: I am not exhibitionist enough to blog; I do not have photos, so it is useless; blogging distracts me from writing my article. When I finally got photos (I work with film), I figured my trips were already over, so my blogs would lack the sense of immediacy …

But Davor has put in some old stuff so I feel Ok about blogging you to death now. I will run the tape backwards:

I last went to the Gueshevo train station, at Bulgaria’s border with Macedonia, on Aug. 23 and — boy — the story behind Gueshevo is worthy of a comic book- or a tragicomic one, depending on your inclination

The track leading to Gueshevo is part of Corridor VIII – an east-west route spanning Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania meant to bring Asian traffic to the West, but – well — rather slowly. On the Kjustendil – Gueshevo section, the train moves with 10 km/ hour. And there is no track beyond the border. Bulgarian journalists have taken bittersweet pride in calling the train “the slowest in Europe”, but they’re mistaken — the Mocanitza train in Northern Romania “speeds up” to 8, 999 km/ hour through the Maramures wilderness. (You can hear a report on it here: http://networkeurope.radio.cz/feature/all-aboard-the-slow-train) ha-ha-ha

In fact, the locomotive of the Bulgarian champion was made in Romania, in 1973!:-)

Anyway, the landscape the train graces completely redeems all else. “It’s just like Switzerland!” Bulgarians shout out as we slither past.

Switzerland

But this Switzerland is very deserted. “We went on foot once from Guehevo to Dolno Selo, a 5 km walk by foot, and didn’t meet a single person,” an old man says of the desertion of the border region. “It used to be heaven. Young people were traveling on weekends to the market in Kjustendil, then returning,” the man continues.

Switzerland

So, dear Brits, if you want to revive this Switzerland, you need only visit Sofia’s Central Train Station and take a train to Kjustendil.

Sofia - Kjustendil train

But don’t be taken in by its pretty looks – that’s the newest import from Germany. Plenty of young people ride on it, but in Kjustendil you will have to change to a grimy, stuffy thing.

Kjustendil - Gueshevo train

Railway workers call it “our attraction train”.The age of its passengers on the attraction train rises to over 50. They get off at decrepit god-forsaken once-upon-a-time train stations one by one. And for a while you are left almost alone inside the train.

Scene along Corridor VIII

“See how dirty the windows are?”, a rail worker asks. “Because the idea here is to just imitate activity.”

Grimy window II

And at Gueshevo, you will most likely be the only passengers getting off. Apart from several rail workers and a family of swallows, nobody really visits.

Gueshevo train station

Well, there are random delegations from Italy, Macedonia, Albania and who-knows-where coming to check on ‘progress’ periodically. But those then leave, “spread out big tables in Sofia, eat well, and forget about it all”, as a rail worker conjectures. So that’s that.

Still, it’s worth the visit because you can go mountain hiking. There’s even a map! (maps and signs are rare in Bulgaria

Map of tourist routes in the border region

And the train station is a monument of culture;

and of history. It is hoped here that the border will be jointly administered by Macedonians and Bulgarians at some point, but I am afraid this hope is over a century old. So you can see a newly built, sealed and unused customs building;

Gueshevo customs

and you can also see how an old train station – and probably the biggest in Bulgaria — has stood in waiting for the Macedonians half-empty since 1909. This is when the Bulgarian King Ferdinand donated the land for the station. Back then, it was believed that a “unification” of Bulgaria and Macedonia was imminent, which it wasn’t. So Bulgaria fought two Balkan wars, and then World War Two on the side of the Nazis to attempt “annexing” it one last time. (As you see, I put falsity-suggesting quotation marks around both unification and annexing – the terms that would offend Macedonians and Bulgarians respectively – in order to affect fairness — but these games are hilarious and not in any way easy:-). The Germans pounded the ground for 2-3 years, trying to finish the rail, but couldn’t. “If they’d held the front for only one more year, we’d now probably have a rail to Macedonia,” rail workers joke. The track now stops 2 km away from the border. And railway workers wonder if they should count on “another war or a miracle” to finally finish that rail to Skopje.

Of course, there’s skepticism also. “Construction will go on forever,” another rail worker predicts. “But you, journalists, should go on writing about it so we take the money of those in Brussels. Why should only they live well?”

Ha-ha. This thing with getting Brussels money is quite ironic. I asked a rail worker if the track is being maintened.

“No”, he says.
“Why, isn’t it dangerous?”
“Yes”
“How dangerous?”
“Well, it depends on where the train derails. It may just stop, or roll down awhile.”

In 2005, the locomotive and first carriage did in fact derail. Nobody was hurt. The EU had recently given Bulgaria money to change the tracks but — well –Bulgarians used old instead of new cross ties, and stole the rest of the money. So the result was a derailment.

Slithering back…

People waving the train goodbye

The Sofia – Thessaloniki track – a rather frequently used one — has not been maintained for a while either.

But most interesting is the fate of a train the Bulgarian Railway Company received to kill weeds growing on the rail tracks by sprinkling something over. Vital parts of the train started disappearing piece by piece, the rail worker says; they put it together again but then the engine also disappeared! Now railway workers can be seen mowing the grass with a scythe – back to the 19th century:-)

“The guards cannot do the work,” the worker complains. ”Because their salaries are low. They pay them 150 euro; in Romania it’s 600.”

You see, after Jan. 1, all comparisons Bulgarians draw are to Romania It’s comic.

The final version of my article is finally complete and I feel sooooooooooooooooo nice and “released” from its demons. In September I literally suffered from a first draft post-production shock. I was completely incapable of grasping my story structure and as a result, I am afraid, my local editor, Albena, and the English prime editor, Marcus, had to suffer.

I felt utterly dumb and void after finishing my second article draft also, which felt like – basically – putting things in, then taking them out, then putting them back again – until my mind went blank and useless. I only managed to partially recover after I bought myself some expensive stuff - my first in a lifetime “shopping therapy”. It worked.

So I want to be very honest about it: I severely dislike the person who invented British story structures, some time in the 19^th century, I think, because I found a reference to it in a fairy tale (!) — yes — by Oscar Wilde. And it goes like this: A Linnet is telling a story to a Water-rat, but at a certain point goes silent … “Is that the end of the story?” asks the Water-rat.”Certainly not, that is the beginning.” “Then you are quite behind the age,” says the Water-rat. “Every good story-teller nowadays starts with the end, and then goes on to the beginning, and concludes with the middle.”

My initial story structure was exactly like this: supposed to begin with the end, conclude with the middle, and to include multiple complications in-between!

We changed it, several times. Thank god!

(no bad feelings about BIRN’s choice of story structures here)
By the way, how did you feel about writing your articles? Eleonora has shared some insight:-) I felt like the black sheep causing the most trouble — mostly because I tried to get things right the first time, instead of attempting to write the article my own way and only then try to fit it to the proposed structure. The result was awful.

My Psychiatrist is awfully determined to get the Article and myself on the right track. So, She decided to intensify the sessions.  

For two days, we were locked in the office, going up and down the text, switching the paragraphs, going back to the early stages of its development, working on the ID, Ego and Super ego. 

“Eleonora, we need more colour!” – said my Psychiatrist. 

My Ego was hurt to hear that I had been looking at things in black and white all the time. My Id was screaming that I should leave all that and go to sleep, while Super ego was urging that we should all calm down and be rational.  

As the introduction was looking for its identity, the background paragraph was suffering from “saturation with information”, the body of the article was troubled with schizophrenia and the conclusion was somewhat monomaniac in its attempt to avoid ambiguity. 

By the time the Psychiatrist destroyed the first pack of cigarettes, the introduction was starting to form an identity. We bargained the information from the background paragraph, leaving the clearest and most urgently relevant info in it.  

As night fell over Skopje, I started seeing things in colour. It is good having person with journalistic experience by your side, I thought. 

But, “experience is the name people give to their mistakes” – said my Id, quoting Oscar Wilde.  

Hmm… should I be glad that I have less then?? 

By the end of the second pack of cigarettes, the article actually looked composed. I cannot say the same about myself. 

Word count – 3 450. 

Too much. Another rearrangement of paragraphs and facts. Recount – 3 225. 

“Arranging the paragraphs is like playing with ‘lego’ toys” – says my Psychiatrist.  

After playing around with the paragraphs, we concluded that the word count was working against us, so the words kept multiplying instead of decreasing. Another revision, Crl + X (cut) and delete and…  

The final version is done, the words stopped reproducing, the colouring is better, “the patient has shown remarkable progress”. 

From the couch directly to bed. I shall reflect on the final version of the article on another occasion.  

In the meanwhile, in between two sessions with the Psychiatrist, while trying to forget about my “Article interrupted”, I immersed myself to a life of party, fun, friends and fiction.  

Skopje is a city that has fairly good night life, September is a month of many events – my birthday, Independence Day, graduations and post – summer gatherings and I am fortunate to have many friends that are fond of socialising.   

As much as I enjoyed all the cultural and not – so – cultural events that September had to offer, again the best event that happened was not related to life or love, but to – work. 

When I decided to become a journalist, some 5 years ago, it wasn’t because “I dreamed of doing this ever since I was a little girl”. It was because of the conflict in
Macedonia, BBC and CNN. I thought it would be fun to go to “dangerous” places and report about events as they happen, or do undercover investigative work, pretending to be someone else while trying to unravel a mysterious chain of illegal activities.  

Of course, working in Macedonian media broke all illusions. Becoming a reported for the BBC or CNN and going to
Iraq, or doing investigative journalism seemed distant as the Moon in 1968.  

But…  

Then came BIRN and the chance to do investigative journalism. 

And, in September, after a series of tests and interviews I was informed that I got the job as a reported for the Macedonian service of BBC Radio.  

Yauh!! 

It made my day/month/year. The job is in Skopje, so I don’t get to go to Iraq or
Darfur, but still, it is important as a realisation of a part of a dream.  

After announcing the breaking news to all my friends, celebrating a series of birthdays and graduations, I remembered that there is one more thing to address with all my attention. 

The article.

Back on the couch.