Murals by Bodorna Hydroelectric Plant, Tbilisi, Georgia

Posted on 16/08/2024 by Michael

Bodorna mural – linemen

Murals by Bodorna Hydroelectric Plant, Tbilisi, Georgia

Try as I might I have been unable to find out any information whatsoever about these murals. They are certainly from Georgia’s Socialist period but why they are where they are is difficult to tell.

The art work consists of a number of panels (ten of which it is possible to get a good view but a couple which have impenetrable undergrowth preventing a close examination) depicting variolous aspects of life in the Socialist Republic of Georgia.

The wall is at the entrance of a hydroelectric plant and one of the panels depicts workers from such a plant so that would seem to be able to give a rough origin date. However, all the information I’ve been able to find is about the plant that was completed in 2018. So whether this means there existed a much smaller one in the past and it was replaced I don’t know. Considering the other images in the murals the specificity of electrical linemen must be relevant to the location.

My speculation is that there was some sort of community centre, sports ground, that was built next to the reservoir. A some time in the relatively recent past the reservoir has been expanded and whatever was there before has been sacrificed. Now all that remains of that centre is the wall that is now being ‘lost’ to the undergrowth.

Bodorna mural – harvest celebration

No idea of the sculptor, although s/he follows the very distinctive Georgian style as can be seen in the mural on the wall of the old telephone exchange in Tskaltubo; the mural of the War Memorial in Gori and even in the Mother of Georgia statue in the hills above old Tbilisi.

So what’s on the panels? All of the panels which it is possible to see clearly follow a similar format. Apart from one panel all of them have four people involved in various activities and, as far as I could make out, all the individuals are distinct, i.e., there’s no repetition of any figure in another panel. And they generally tell a story of everyday life in (mainly) rural Georgia between the Great Patriotic War and the collapse of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s.

As seems to be a distinctive Georgian style of the period the tableau is made of of blocks of stone which, I think, gives the figures a ‘puppet’ look. In general they seem to be in a good condition – considering that no one, I’m sure, takes any real care of the art work. However, there are a few circumstances where a block is missing, mainly of a few of the faces. Whether general wear and tear or a conscious political ‘statement’ it’s impossible to tell. There’s a little bit of mindless vandalism but considering the isolation of the site surprisingly little.

Bodorna mural – female construction worker

The panels;

four male electrical linemen, working to distribute the power generated from the hydroelectric plant to the surrounding communities. There’s an image of a dam releasing its water in the background;
a group representing the arts, painting, music, theatre and performance. Here there are two men and two women;
an image of construction workers. A metal beam is being lowered above them. The four are all wearing hard hats and one of them is a woman;
a family group consisting of the parents on either side of a toddler, holding and supporting him. Unfortunately the baby has lost its head. Behind that group there are two older children playing a ball game. Interestingly, in the top left hand corner of the panel is an image of an old man holding a model of a house, there’s also a plant growing in the bottom tight hand corner. This is depicted as being something on the wall of their home and, I’m assuming, he represents one of the ancient, mythological deities from Caucasian folklore, one of those who protects the home – although I haven’t been able to identify exactly which guardian angel;

Bodorna mural – protector of the home

a group representing science, physics and chemistry. Here there are three men and a woman. There’s a globe on the ground, scientific symbols in the background and on the left is a man in a space suit (one Georgian cosmonaut went into space as part of the Soviet space programme);
a group of agricultural workers bring in the grape harvest. It should be remembered that wine is supposed to have been invented in Georgia. In the left background there’s a huge, flaming sun. Two of the faces of the figures are missing;
a group of four shepherds – with two of their sheep;
four agricultural workers, two men and two women, who seem to be celebrating the harvest. The man and the woman on the left both hold scythes. A man is playing a stringed instrument that could be either a chonguri or a panduri (a four and three stringed long-neck lute) and the woman on the right is holding a bunch of flowers above her head. Doves fly around in the background;
a group of male and female dancers, partially obscured by the encroaching vegetation;
a group of four male footballers.

Not sure how many other panels there might be as access was impossible due to the shrubbery, but only a couple, I think.

An interesting little sculpture gallery – and basically in the middle of nowhere.

Mother of Georgia – Kartlis Deda – Tbilisi

Telephone exchange mural – Tskaltubo

Location;

Off the eastern side of the ‘military road’ that runs from Tbilisi towards the Russian border near Kazbegi, close to the village of Bodorna and at the entrance to the Bodorna Hydroelectric Plant.

GPS;

42.041950º N

44.745477º E

More on the Republic of Georgia

Tskaltubo’s abandoned Spas, Springs and Sanatoria

Posted on 18/02/2020 by Michael

Imereti

More on the Republic of Georgia

Tskaltubo’s abandoned Spas, Springs and Sanatoria

Introduction

For reasons that can only be guessed at you can’t look at a British newspaper, go to the BBC website or by looking for information about the Georgian town of Tskaltubo without coming cross articles, pictures or videos about the ruined health spa buildings (which were hugely popular in Soviet times and even after the so-called ‘collapse of Communism’) in the town.

It’s not that these buildings have been in the condition they are found today for a short period of time. They fell into disrepair when relations turned sour between Georgia and Russia over the provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia which led to open warfare in August 2008. The fighting war only lasted 5 days but the consequences have been around for much longer.

One of those consequences which has had a direct impact on the town of Tskaltubo was the use of the former spa resorts and hotels as homes for some of the thousands of refugees.

I don’t know exactly in what state these buildings, some of them huge and which had been the holiday home for hundreds in their heyday, were in the summer of 2008 but a refugee crisis that could have been handled with some sort of compassion seems to have been left totally to individual initiative and lacking any semblance of organisation.

By that I mean to imply that those who arrived first took what was useful to themselves and there was no communal approach to make the fullest – and most efficient – use of the structures of the former hotels.

Under the ideology of the Soviet Union (when it could still have been considered a Socialist state) the emphasis in such establishments would have been placed on the communal areas. This would have meant that the lower floors (including basements) would have been devoted to dining and concert rooms, general meeting areas and facilities for leisure activities (such as cinemas and theatres) and extensive kitchens to cater for so many people in a relatively short space of time.

It would have been on the upper floors where the bedrooms would have been found – but they were likely not all to have had en suite facilities (this was an invention even the likes of Britain took some time to adopt) and certainly no means of cooking.

Yet these were the spaces the refugees rushed to and which they then adapted to cater for the individualistic lifestyle they were attempting to establish. No doubt, in the process, any useful materials would have been looted from the communal areas below making them virtually useless at any time in the immediate future.

By all accounts there were many more refugees from the conflict in Tskaltubo than there are now but I visited at least seven of the old resort sanatoria which still had a substantial population in the autumn of 2019.

What dismayed me (but which the cretinous film crews and semi-professional photographers that have been swarming all over the place in recent times) was the very degradation and filth that characterises the communal areas. Some of this decay can be witnessed in the slide show a the end of this post. There could have been many more examples but I started to become both angry and depressed at recording such wanton vandalism and thoughtlessness that had made the living conditions of so many people so much worse.

I had the ‘opportunity’ of only visiting one person’s home – that of an old Abkhazian woman who tried to sell over-priced booze and cakes to any foreigner, like myself, who pointed a camera in the direction of the buildings. She was in the sanatorium I have called ‘It’s my business’ as I haven’t been able to discover its proper name and that was the phrase she used all the time during the few minutes I was in her ‘home’. I was given to believe that there are women like her in some of the other refugee occupied hotels.

It was truly sad to see how the fine entrance halls, staircases, dining and concert rooms – with decorated and vaulted ceilings – and the general communal areas had been allowed to arrive at such a state of filth and decay. Nothing that was considered communal was of consideration at all. This also meant there was no lighting in the entrances and stair wells meaning torches were a necessity once it got dark. Such a situation would do nothing in creating a feeling of safety and security

Wooden parquet flooring had been torn up, presumably to be burnt for cooking and/or heating. Anything of use on these lower floors – such as floorboards – had also been torn up leaving the surface below to degrade and in the process creating holes into the cellar. And the general lack of concern for an area that was ‘not their’s’ meant rubbish started to accumulate – and here I not just talking about historic rubbish but contemporary plastic drinks bottles. I suppose once the collective decision to live in shit has been accepted any more shit is neither here or there.

Broken water pipes and dangerous electrical wiring was everywhere and added to the build up of inflammable rubbish creating a haven for disease and vermin as well as storing up problems for the future.

The refugees from the 2008 war could have lived in relative luxury. They chose not to but to live in dirt and degradation.

But the Western European pricks with their expensive cameras and drones to provide an overall view of these once magnificent buildings don’t see anything other than an opportunity to demonstrate their cultural superiority.

But there’s also a political aspect of this highlighting of these sad ruins. Such a situation is always described with reference to the Soviet past implying that it was the Socialist system that was in some way responsible for the consequences of the present.

It is conveniently forgotten that even the Revisionist Soviet Union ceased to exist 30 years ago (and it hadn’t been a socialist country for more than 40 years before that), that in the years since the so-called ‘fall of Communism’ the ‘superior’ economic system of capitalism has singularly failed (as it could but not do) to resolve the ‘problems’ that existed under Socialism.

Even though the present Russian leadership and all its robbing hangers-on would have ended their days in a Siberian gulag at the time of Socialism they are considered to be tainted with the ‘evil’ of Communism. Any attack on Russia (as indeed is any attack on the now capitalist China – witness the way matters are being twisted over the management of the present (2020) coronavirus crisis when if it had broken out in the capitalist west free market economic forces would have prevented any effective measures to contain the outbreak – can anyone believe that any British government would put London in lock down?) has nothing to do with what policies they are pursuing at the present time but a propaganda effort to make sure that they get punished for being the first country that had the effrontery to challenge the capitalist system and establish a workers and peasants socialist republic.

And the targets for this denigration of any idea of establishing revolutionary socialism are the very people whose only long term guarantee of freedom from exploitation and oppression is the making of such a revolution – that is the workers and peasants of the world.

At the same time it has to be recognised that there are some very strange examples of how those people who had been brought up in a socialist system react to the environment around them when those systems (for various reasons) have collapsed.

Present day Albania is a prime example where the people seemed to have accepted the destruction of the very economic basis of their country for nothing in return. There’s a definable correlation between the vast migration of Albanians from their country to elsewhere in the world to the existence of an almost limitless number of abandoned and looted factories in the country. Added to that the division of the land into small plots virtually killed off a national agriculture.

But it isn’t just in the post-Communist countries that we see people destroying the vestiges of a past social system and reverting to a more basic economy. When the Roman Empire retreated from Britain in the 4th century the remaining Britons were incapable of taking any lessons from the invaders and reverted to a life style similar to what they had followed more than 400 years before. Lessons in hygiene and sanitation which the Romans had developed (of course only for a few) were forgotten and diseases related to such poor or non-existent sanitation were to kill millions in the subsequent centuries – cholera doing its worse well into the 19th century in Europe.

A look at some of the buildings, both those being now used as refugee accommodation and those that were visiting Soviet workers would visit to take ‘advantage’ of the curing radon infused waters and mud.

Sanatorium Aia

Aia

This is one of the newer buildings that make up the whole complex of Tskaltubo, i.e., constructed in the 1960s or 70s when demand for places at the spa town continued to rise.

As is the case in all the buildings the gardens and approaches immediately surrounding Aia hasn’t been cared for in years. The ground floor which housed the communal areas and dining rooms had been stripped of anything decorative and all you are left with is the bare concrete floors. Where it was coming from I don’t know but there was a lot of standing water. This water would have come from inside the building suggesting that the pipes (fresh water or sewage) are not in the condition they should be. I would also have thought a breeding ground for mosquitoes in the summer.

Aia also demonstrates something which is common in all the buildings, some of the finest dating back to the 1940s (or earlier), and that is the efforts to grab more living and storage space from the limited amount available. Many of the balconies had been blocked in with various scraps of wood or metal thus grabbing a few more square metres for the inhabitants.

Aia is basically a shanty town in the air.

Another common addition was the satellite dishes. I haven’t seen a great deal of Georgian television but I would be surprised if they are served up anything more edifying than the mind-numbing generic productions that dominate most country’s TV output.

As I was walking around this building the woman who directed me to the decoration in the old dining room also suggested that I go to the first floor where there was a woman who would sell the chacha and cake. Each building, it seems, has one.

The Tile Mosaics

Aia – Grape Harvest

I don’t know why but I was expecting more internal decoration in the hotels than was the reality. Previous to my visit to Aia I seen the facade of Spring No. 6 – which has the bas relief depicting a visit of Joseph Stalin to the town. Many of the older buildings do have the lavish use of marble, parquet flooring, chandeliers and a general feeling of opulence but there was no real presence of the Socialist Realist art that I was expecting. Apart from at Aia – where there are two examples.

The first is in the area that would have been the dining room where one wall is covered with colourful tiles depicting the whole of the wine growing process. In the centre, and by far the largest characters, are two young Georgian woman reminiscent of the statue of Mother Georgia in the hills above Tbilisi. There is some damage, some of it which looks deliberate, but considering the circumstances in which the mosaic has to cope it is in a surprisingly good shape. There’s no protection from the elements, the damp conditions can’t help and it can get cold in Tskaltubo in the winter.

There’s another tile mosaic high up on the wall that would have looked down on the hotel’s garden. This depicts musicians and dancers in traditional Georgia dress. Unfortunately, this has not fared as well as the one in the dining room, many tiles have fallen away and it also shows signs of serious staining and water damage.

Sanatorium Imereti

Imereti

This was one of the grand creations of the early days of Tskaltubo as a spa resort. Built slightly up the hill from the main park which was the location of the bath houses Imereti is a neo-classical structure – not the utilitarian of the later Aia.

To approach the main entrance the visitor had to go up a sweeping, double set of steps to arrive at an imposing facade. Once in the building the entrance hall has marble classical columns which direct the visitor to a wide and high staircase that would lead to the bedroom floors.

At one end there is a rotunda that housed a concert room with a vaulted ceiling and an internal circle of narrow columns, breaking up the space.

It would have been an impressive sight to a visiting Soviet worker. Now it’s a ruin in which no one should live – not even the cow that was feeding when I visited.

At the back of the building was a square where visitors would have congregated on warm summer evenings but now some of the space has been used as small vegetable gardens and the communal clothes washing area.

Sanatorium ‘It’s my business’

‘It’s my business’ Spa Hotel

Try as I might I haven’t (yet) discovered the true name of this building – hence the nickname based on the phrase used by the Abkhazian woman I met on my visit.

This is another of the really large and impressive early buildings. (Although I haven’t seen any dates for the construction of all the spa buildings a large commemorative urn that sits on a table in the main entrance to Spring No. 6 has pictures of many of the spas in Tskaltubo in full operation. The urn is dated 1961. The later Revisionist leaders of the Soviet Union went for utilitarianism rather than style.)

This takes its influence from early Italianate buildings, with large blocks of stone being used at the lower level and the square column topped towers that rise up on either side of the main entrance.

Apart from the ‘standard’ large communal rooms there are internal patios (with now derelict fountains) at the back together with roof gardens. Now all filthy with mould and overgrown with weeds.

It’s a long time since the lift in the main entrance was used and various side rooms are being used as plastic rubbish bins.

One interesting external decoration is the bas relief (I assume metal) high up on the east wall of the building, looking down on the terracotta mosaic of telephone workers.

Sanatorium Medea

Medea Sanatorium

This is one of the most impressive of the sanatorium which takes its architectural influence from the classical period. In a sense the area of the main entrance is purely decorative and serves little function. It’s more the impression the visitor got (and still gets – even though now in disrepair) when approaching the building.

The stone clad circular entrance has an external stair on either side which leads to a first floor colonnaded area. This is open on all sides and serves, really, no practical purpose. From here there is access to the main building but everything appears somewhat mundane after the initial reaction provided by the approach from the road. If this area does have any practical use it’s as a viewing platform of the area of the park and the hills around Tskaltubo.

As in some of the other hotels there are also patios and roof areas where visitors in the past would have enjoyed the summer warmth.

The not so interesting accommodation which is off to the left of the main decorative entrance is yet another that is being occupied by refugees. I can only imagine that the conditions on the lower floors are the same as in the places already mentioned. After a while it gets draining and depressing going into the different buildings to witness the same level of decay. It becomes even more depressing when you know that these are peoples’ homes and that some have been there for years and it seems an intrusion to constantly make a record of the squalor which surrounds them.

(I perhaps haven’t mentioned that there are a number of the old hotels which are completely empty of any refugees – or any other occupants with problems in finding a proper home – which are like blots on the landscape of the town. There is supposed to be an intention to develop some of these buildings but some are so huge and the clientele numbers will never reach anything like what was achieved during Soviet times that so many of these plans will remain pipe dreams.)

In front of Medea’s accommodation block there’s a small, circular fountain which is surprisingly deep considering there would have been many children in the area. Obviously this fountain is nothing more than a dirty, waterless hole now and the statues (of a young girl on an ‘island’ in the centre and four young, naked boys kneeling on the rim) are in reasonable, if not perfect, condition.

Sanatorium North-west

North-west Sanatorium

This is another building whose true name I have been unable to discover. It sits just outside the main park, in the north-west, beside the road that goes around the park. This one was, in fact, the first one I visited and it didn’t look that bad from a short distance, much of the building being shielded by the mature pine trees that separate the building from the road.

Once close up the same signs of decay mentioned before emerge. Like many of these hotels the entrances are impressive this one having a stone balustraded stairway on both sides of a small (now totally ruined) fountain, reached by a few flights of steps from the road.

The two storied building to the right of the entrance would have been the communal area and is a total ruin, to the extent that all the windows have been removed. On top there’s an open yet covered roof patio, again providing an outside area to enjoy the warmth of the sun.

Where there are people living they have followed the same practices as already mentioned. All of these buildings are architecturally unique but they have been reduced to the lowest common denominator by the addition of the makeshift additions and adaptations as well as the ubiquitous satellite dishes.

Sanatorium Iveria

This is the sanatorium which is located furthest from the main park and the area of the baths but in many ways is one of the most attractive. There are not that many pictures of this building in the slide show as after I had squeezed my way through the corrugated sheets supposedly preventing access I didn’t have much enthusiasm to explore more.

I assume that this building would have been used to house refugees in the past but there is no one living there now. Added to that all the doors and windows have been removed so this might have been a tactic used by the local/national authorities to prevent the re-colonisation of these buildings when the previous inhabitants had either been rehoused somewhere more appropriate of had found an alternative themselves.

Unique in its design it has hexagonal stairwells at various points along the facade which are surmounted by small columned, hexagonal towers. The main entrance door is very distinctive in that it is under a very tall columned loggia, which extends two floors in height.

The ground floor entrance and the beginning of the main staircase is also in a better condition than many, much of the blue paint of the walls remaining as well as the plaster work on the ceiling being in a good condition. Probably why it has appeared in most articles about these sad buildings.

Spas, Springs and Baths

As well as the hotels a number of the spas, that are predominantly located in the central park, have also fallen into disrepair. These are in a different category to the hotels and resorts that were used to house refugees after the Russian-Georgian conflict. Tensions between the two countries increased, the spas and bath-houses that were built to cater to thousands were receiving fewer and fewer visits and after the war there was no where for them to stay.

Present day visitors can still take the water (and mud) treatments in Springs No. 1, No 3 and No 6. Numbers 1 and 3 are relatively modest buildings where Spring No. 6 is a much larger and grander structure. It is also the Spa that contains the extremely luxurious spa that Stalin used on his visits to the town.

Spring No. 4

There’s not a great deal that can be said about Spring No 4. It’s a one level, square building, probably built in the 1950s but today (of all the buildings from the glory days of the Soviet Union) it is the most difficult to enter and it is protected by substantial locked gates. Whether it is hiding some particular gem I have yet to discover. It can be found at the northern end of the park, close to the Palace of Sport.

Spring No. 5

Spring No. 5 is a little bit more decorative that No. 4 – probably indicating it was built some years earlier.

As I type this I start to think that probably the change in the architectural styles indicate the the simpler, concrete structures, of both the hotels and the spas, were part of Khrushchev’s attack on the Socialist developments that were achieved under the leadership of Joseph Stalin. The magnificent Metro stations that were in major cities such as Moscow and Leningrad also started to become more mundane and ‘normal’. This change in approach started very soon after the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (of 1956) where Khrushchev – in a secret speech – denounced the great Marxist-Leninist leader of the party and implicitly all that had been achieved in the years since 1917.

The words Khrushchev and culture didn’t, and still don’t, really belong in the same sentence. He had no concept that what was produced for the workers and peasants should have been as good, well constructed and attractive as – or even better – than that produced for the wealthy. But he was a mere manager and started the thinking in the Soviet Union that was to soon lead it to revert to being a bastion of capitalism – even when under the name of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.

It’s the largest of the abandoned springs and is second only to number 6 in size. The impressive loggia over the front, principle entrance is its main attraction but the large, individual tile faced baths which shoot off from the main corridor indicate it was a centre for water treatment.

Spring No. 8

Spring No. 8 is another interesting construction. Probably from the late 1950s it’s a low, one level, circular building which doesn’t seem to have a special entrance. In the middle of the concrete ceiling there would have been a large glass dome (long gone), both bringing in natural light and the heat when the sun was shining.

The very layout and decoration of this building indicates to me that it was designed for children. They could play in the warm waters, supervised, whilst their parents might have been having treatment for whatever their medical ailment might have been.

Tskaltubo’s Springs and Sanatoria

Click on image to download a much larger pdf version

Key to Map

1 Sanatorium Iveria
2 Sanatorium Shakhtar
3 Sanatorium Imereti
4 Sanatorium ‘It’s my business’
5 Sanatorium Metallurgist
6 Sanatorium North- west
7 Spring No. 4
8 Spring No. 5
9 Sanatorium Savane
10 Spring No. 8
11 Sanatorium Medea
12 Sanatorium Aia
13 Sanatorium Sakartvelo

A Spring No. 6 (and Stalin’s ‘private spa’)

More on the Republic of Georgia

Traditional Musicians and Dancers

Posted on 17/04/2015 by Michael

Gjirokastra – Musicians and Dancers Bas Relief

Traditional Musicians and Dancers

Although there are many monuments and statues that are overtly political, in that they commemorate events or people involved in national liberation struggles (whether that be against the Ottoman Empire or the Italian and German Fascists of World War Two) other aspects of Albanian life are also represented in various locations throughout the country. As Gjirokastra, in the Socialist period, had become the centre for periodic folklore festivals it’s not surprising to find a frieze depicting traditional musicians and dancers located there.

This is easy to miss. It’s on Rruga Gjin Zenebisi, just a couple of hundred metres further up the hill from the Partisan Memorial, on the left just before the road enters the main square (Sheshi Çerçiz Topulli) of the old town.

The artist is Ksenofon Kostaqi, who was also involved in the magnificent obelisk to education which is higher up in the Old Town. It was completed in 1983, the same year as the Monument to the Partisan. That year was the fortieth anniversary of the liberation of the town from the yoke of fascism and this prompted a certain amount of celebratory sculpture.

The frieze is composed of white blocks of lime stone and the carvings of the characters look in good condition. The stone is blackened around the edges (this is north facing and will be cold and damp for much of the year) and apart from a few missing blocks the memorial is intact.

It depicts eight different individuals, all in ‘traditional’ dress’. (Here I use the term ‘traditional’ in the sense of the sort of dress that was common before the influence of western fashion took hold in the early years of the 20th century. However, even during the National Liberation War against the fascists, from 1939-44, many people in the countryside would have been regularly wearing items of this style as can be seen, for example, on the Peze War Memorial.) I’m not an expert on Albanian dress, and all areas have their own variations, but I would assume that this is the style of dress typical, at some time in the past, of the Gjirokastra region.

Gjirokastra National Folk Festival – Historic 02

On the right hand side are four musicians. The one on the extreme right is playing what looks like a violin. I can’t find any reference to the violin being an Albanian favoured instrument – perhaps, again, the increasing influence from the west. All foreign imports into a culture are not necessarily negative if they fill a gap missing from the indigenous culture. (Consider the use of the guitar in Central American and Caribbean music.)

In front of him (all the musicians are male) the player holds a defi (a large type of tambourine) high above his head. Next is a young man playing a surlja (an early type of clarinet) with the bell pointed up to the sky. The very end of the instrument is missing, indicating that – for whatever the reason – some of the top stones are missing. The final musician plays a lahuta (which derives its name from the lute), also know as a saze in the south of the country. This is sometimes played with a bow but here he is strumming the strings. Such a small ensemble of players was quite common in Albania and we can see that being represented (with a slightly different combination of instruments) on the Durres War Memorial. All the men are wearing what looks like the traditional (almost all-Albania wide) xhakete (waistcoat) and tirq (long woollen trousers). On their heads they wear a qylafë, a high woollen hat which is typical of the south of the country.

Gjirokastra National Folk Festival – Historic 01

The other four characters depicted are the dancers, two male and two female. They are in the combination of female, male, female, and finally male and are all facing in the same direction, that is towards the left hand edge of the sculpture. The first three are holding hands which are positioned at shoulder height. The final male is waving a handkerchief above his head in his right hand. There is obviously a missing block of stone here which means we can see the hand holding the handkerchief but not the whole article itself.

In Albania many of the dances take their name from the region where they originated or are popular but the way these four are dancing is very reminiscent of the Greek Tsamiko (or Zorba’s dance, before he fell over drunk). That would make sense in Gjirokastra as the city is not that far from the border with Greece and influences have passed back and forth over the centuries. From my research both the men are wearing a fustanella (a skirt like garment) over a tirq with an ornate xhakete. The women are wearing what I think is the xhubleta, a long dress together with a long, free-flowing coat. All the dancers and the musicians are wearing opingas, the soft, fabric based shoes with the narrow point at the toe bent up into the air.

Gjirokastra National Folk Festival – Historic 03

So why this monument here, on the road side in Gjirokastra?

After the liberation of the country from the Fascists in 1944 one of the many aims of the new people’s government was to improve the intellectual and cultural life of the population. Illiteracy was almost universal so education was a priority. Along with that came a recognition of the preservation and promotion of the Albanian culture through which the people could express their identity.

National Costume 02

Being a predominantly agricultural society traditional – that is pre-20th century – music, dance and dress were still very much part of people’s lives. However, before 1945 there weren’t any professional theatres whatsoever in the country. The Party sought to remedy that and by 1951 the number of public performances were four times greater than they had been in 1945.

National Costume 01

This was helped by the holding of the National Festival of Song, Music and Dance held in Tirana in 1949. It was repeated ten years later in 1959. In 1968 it was decided to hold the National Folklore Festival in Gjirokastra and, further, that this should be an event to take place every five years. This was the case until things started to fall apart in 1990. In 1995 the festival was held in Berat but returned to Gjirokastra in the year 2000. The last event was held in 2009 and the next is due, back in its traditional home of Gjirokastra Castle, from the 10-15th May 2015. (The ‘every five year’ schedule being missed.)

National Folklore Festival site, Gjirokastra Castle

I don’t know how well this festival will be attended both in terms of participants or spectators. During the period of Socialism folklore dancers and musicians would appear on the streets of all the towns of the country during the nation’s celebrations (such as Independence and Liberation Days in November as well as May Day) as well as during various congresses held by the Party of Labour of Albania (PLA) or other workers organisations, such a the Trade Unions or the Women’s Union. Under capitalism these events, if they take place at all, are not celebrated en masse as they used to be and have not come across such events in my travels in the last few years

The depopulation of the country in general and some of the smaller villages in particular would also have had an impact on the continuity of the tradition which is vital to maintain a thriving and vibrant culture. It will be interesting to see what happens in three weeks’ time.