Kosovo Decides on National Holidays
Balkan Travellers
The law includes 11 official holidays. Among them are some dates specific to Kosovo’s history – February 17, the day Kosovo declared its independence earlier this year, and June 15, the day its new constitution is expected to be approved.
Other holidays are more universal and include International Labour Day (May 1), Europe Day (May 9), Musilm Eids, Christmas (both according to the Catholic and the Orthodox calendars, on December 25 and January 6 respectively), as well as the Catholic and Orthodox Easter.
Two dates not included in the list are the Kosovo Liberation Day, which was celebrated by the ethnic Albanian majority on June 12 – the day NATO forces entered Kosovo after the conflict, and Albania’s Flag Day, November 28, which used to be marked in the UN protectorate.
“Kosovo is an independent, sovereign, democratic and multiethnic country,” Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci told media upon the holidays’ declaration.
The decision on the official holidays and the upcoming adoption of the constitution are the latest steps taken by the Balkans’ newest state in its nation-building project. As BalkanTravellers.com reported in February, the Kosovo parliament adopted a flag at the same time it declared the country’s independence.
And while some parts of the project are accomplished with relative ease – through parliamentary approval, other symbols of national identity – as BalkanTravellers.com wrote, are harder to come by, as they need to be acceptable to all of Kosovo’s citizens.
Read more about Kosovo on BalkanTravellers.com
Epicure
Bulgaria
Pumpkin head!
If you wish to insult somebody in Bulgarian, you could call him tikvenik – a word whose content isn’t quite clear, and which Bulgarians use to mean anything from ‘thickhead’ to ‘airhead’. The good thing about this kind of insult is that it expresses your definite lack of approval, Full Story
Curiosity Chest
Macedonia
Recycled Life: Bottle Collectors in Skopje, Macedonia
Like quicksand, poverty is hard to escape - the harder you fight, the worse it can get. In Skopje, some work hard scouring the city for "treasures." They are bottle collectors, spending the day in search of recyclable plastic which they can sell for a subsistence income.
Full Story
Useful Reads
Bulgaria
Street without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria (2008) | By Kapka Kassabova
Danube blues
Text by Nicholas Lezard for The Guardian*
Full Story
Music
Serbia
EXIT Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia: Overnight Exile in the Fortress
Located roughly in the middle between Bulgaria's Black Sea and Croatia’s Adriatic coasts, which are both shaken by high-energy rock parties each July, Novi Sad hosts one of the most significant summer festivals on the Balkans – EXIT. As fans from all parts of the region start to gather in the town for for this year’s event, scheduled to take place between July 10 and 13, Mila Popova recounts about the time she spent at the festival last summer.
Full Story
-
Photogalleries
-
A Perfect Shot
In Homo Urbanus Europeanus, exhibited May 9-24 in front of the National Theatre in Sofia, Jean-Marc Caracci presents his photographs of people in the urban environment of European capitals.
RED&WHITE SOFIA. On the 1st of March Bulgarians say goodbye to the winter. They buy each other red&white threads to carry around until they see a stork and spring can begin. Photography by Lode Desmet
BULGARIA D'OR: The Bulgarian countryside, patinated with the noble golden dust of the autumn. Photographs by Lode Desmet
360 degrees Bulgaria, an exhibition by photographer Alexandar Ivanov, is on display at the Sea Garden in Varna until August 28. It will be shown at Plovdiv’s Central Square from Sept 5.
The exhibition Photographs of a Trip Through Bulgaria by Hungarian photographer András Balla can be seen in Sofia's Hungarian Cultural Institute, at Aksakov 16 Street, until August 22
Instant Spring in Sofia | Photographs by Lode Desmet
Off-the-season Beauty of Bulgaria's Black Sea Coast | Photographs by Adelina Iliev
Bulgaria's Northern Black Sea Coast
Photographs by Albena Shkodrova
excellent smugs