GOSTILITSA
Why do I love Gostilitsa?
As soon as I pass the sign saying Гостилица it feels like coming home.
I love putting on my scruffy 'galoshes' in the morning and taking a walk to the shop to buy a warm fresh loaf of bread to have with breakfast.
I love sipping my mug of tea in the early morning sun and saying hello to the woman who walks along the street with her flock of chickens and turkeys.
I love seeing the sun catching the bright yellow feathers of a golden oriole sitting high in a tree singing its weird hollow song.
I love hearing Baba Ivanka calling to her chickens as she lets them out amid a flurry of wing stretching and squawking. I love the way her dog takes up her sentry position on top of the steps, wagging her tail madly if I go over to say hello.
I love that when I look out of the window, I don't just see another house, I see fields... hills... mountains... sky.
I love that I can just walk out into the open countryside.
I love the abundance of wild food - how gorgeous to stroll along and pick wild plums to eat.
I love the evening scent of wood-smoke in the air.
I love watching the soft red glow of burning logs as they die down before bedtime.
For all these reasons and so many more, I love Gostilitsa.
There used to be a dairy next to the river Yantra which produced a Gostilitsa cheese:
No cheese now though. It's currently a snail processing place making medical products from snails
The Bulgarian version is much more detailed than the English version and well worth running through Google Translate.
Gostilitsa Past And Present
There exists a book written in 1971, titled Гостилица В Миналото И Сега, written by Гинка Димкова and Николай Димков. An online Bulgarian book site appears to sell copies for 30 levs, so if I ever figure out how to order one I'll do so. Then all I need is another few thousand language lessons so I can translate it! I bet it will be fascinating though.
NOVA TV
Every year on February 15th Gostilitsa celebrates Yalova Ponuda. It's a festival which only happens in Gostilitsa so on Monday 15th February 2016, Nova TV featured the village as part of its 'Na Kafe' morning show.
You can see Gostilitsa at the start of the video and again at around 10.25. (There is a possibility that this link may not be viewable outside of Bulgaria)
WATER CRISIS!
This news article dates back to 2006 before the water mains system was radically updated. Thankfully the situation is much improved now. When on holiday there one September we had no mains water for pretty much the full two weeks. Going to a public well each day to fill bottles was a bit of an adventure for two tourists but for the people living here permanently, especially the elderly, it must have been a nightmare.
Водна криза в с. Гостилица
This article is taken from the GabrovoNews website. The monument in question is located in the little park with the orange railings at the south-eastern end of Gostilitsa.
They found a monument of hosts who died for the freedom of Bulgaria
They found a monument in the celebration of the people who fell in the fight against the oppressors and the liberty of Bulgaria, informed the Municipality of Dryanovo. The names of 58 host war heroes from 1912 to 1918 inclusive are written on four marble memorial plaques embedded in a specially designed pedestal in the large park of Dryanovo village Gostilitsa.
The idea of building the monument, as a sign of gratitude and worship to the sacrifice of the guest wars in a total of three wars (Balkan 1912 - 1913, Inter-Allied 1913, World War I 1914 - 1918) was from the distant 1987. However, this year, and the honor to find the finished monument was shared by the mayor of Dryanovo municipality Ivan Nikolov and the mayor's deputy Gostilitsa Mariika Ionova.
The work on the monument was awarded to Veselin Velev, the Gabrovo stonemason, and the necessary funds were raised through donations from Dryanovo Municipality, from individuals and legal entities (local hosts, hosts who settled in other parts of the country or abroad, foreigners who own property in the village).
The municipality of Dryanovo also provided all the necessary assistance for assignment, transportation and installation of the finished plates.
With solemn wreaths and flowers in front of the monument, nearly 100 people honored the memory of the heroes. From now on, the local people will honor the sacrifice of the fallen in the fight against the oppressors and the freedom of Bulgaria hosts on the day dedicated to this - June 2.
The following article is taken from the Dryanovo.net website (click here for the original). It concerns a national literary competition which took place in Gostilitsa in 1968.
Kamen Kalchev is the chairman of the jury who awarded the awards on April 25, 1968
My native village Gostilitsa, announced a 1968 National Literary Competition for Poetry, Stories and Creative Missions. The initiative was mine and the awards were provided by the State Farm. Then the director was Roussi Stanev, an authoritative man who was in charge. His people believed and listened to him. In a short time he transformed the village. He built two courtyards, workshops, dining room, two administrative buildings, asphalt streets and many other useful things. The village looks like a modern little town.
When I went to him and mentioned him as a literary contest, he did not hesitate at all. "I," said Nicholas, "I do not understand, and I will not interfere. You are waiting for me to find money and so much. Act it! Money I will provide. You have complete freedom. "I also remember when in 1968 I told him to write a history of the village with my wife Ginka Dimkova. Roussi Stanev also did not hesitate. "Write," he replied with his throaty voice, "money will be found. I am at stake! "
Roussi Stanev was the director of the farm since its establishment in the autumn of 1957 until 1985. It has been invariably for 28 years. And when it was a couple of months to retire, several people did not hesitate to throw it away as an unnecessary thing. Is this gratitude to the deserving people? Tell me!
For the Gostilitsa competition everything was over. In the day the village was filled with young and old artists from all over Bulgaria: Sofia, Varna, Plovdiv, Stara Zagora, Haskovo, Ruse, Veliko Tarnovo, Elena, Gabrovo and whereabouts. The jury that arrived was composed of: Kamen Kalchev - Chairman, and members - Prof. Ivan Tsvetkov, Emilia Prohaskova and Tihomir Tihov. It awarded the following awards on 25 April 1968.
Prose
First Prize - by Radoslav Mihailov for the tale "Noble Dreams".
Second prize - Doncho Tsonchev for the stories "Sharo" and "Cosheritsa".
For a creative trip - to Ivan Venkov for the story "As a dream has passed".
Poetry
First prize - by Stoycho Stoychev for the poems "Sudden Triptych".
Second Prize - by Ivan Nikolov for the poem "Wire of Wormwood".
The winners received a homemade woven rural bag, which was given the name of the award winner, dressed in geranium, and the prize money in it. Atanas Mochurov, in a joke, told him he really dreamed of such a bag, even if Lev was not inside. In the evening, a great literary reading was held in the Chitalishte saloon, the first one in the village of Gostilitsa. Ivan Nikolov, for example, read two poems from his poetry book "The Peasant with Bread": "Prespi" and "Let's forget ..." And how did the ruined people listen! Which was read, they perceived it deep in its souls:
Bream of fresh quinces
where I am not.
The winter has been drowning:
from big to bigger
/ "Sleep" /
He leaves, and she holds him:
will you still have the trench mud?
And shall he return, a sheaf to tie,
an ox to bind, to take a kaval.
Stone to Stone. Rusty fence.
They have long been in silence
my grandfather Delcho and my grandmother Rada.
In rural cemeteries. Man and woman.
/ "Let's forget ..." /
The next day I invited Anton Mihailov, Ivan Nikolov, Stoycho Stoychev (already deceased) and Atanas Mochurov. Since then, there have been two pictures taken at my home that remind me of this contest. I was planning the contest to take place in two years and I was doing everything possible to continue, as Roussi Stanev did as well, because he felt it was necessary for Gostilitsa. After two years they began to send literary material - poems and stories from everywhere. But the contest was suddenly stopped. Farm people and other clerks repeated in a chorus that this contest was superfluous, that too much money was spent, and so on. etc. This was how to bury a beginning that gave the village a face. The donors and the envoys reached their own plans. Now, from the distance of pain, I would report the names of this people, but they do not deserve this honor. Yet for the Gostilitsa competition there is still talk in the literary circles and there will be a long talk ...
Prof. Dr. Nikolay Dimkov / Dryanovo News
In the picture: Anton Mihaylov, Ivan Nikolov, Nikolay Dimkov, Stoycho Stoychev and Atanas Mochurov in the yard of the house of Nikolay Dimkov, when the Gostilitsa literary competition - 1968