Direct Commercial Flights between Albania and Israel Commence
Balkan Travellers
The flight, which leaves from the airport in Tirana, the capital of Albania, will land at the Ben Gurion International Airport, Israel’s largest airport, located 15 kilometres southeast of the capital Tel Aviv. It will carry 175 passengers, mainly Albanian businessmen, international media reported.
A second flight between the two countries is expected to take place in March, while the airline hopes to establish a regular direct route beginning in May. The Israir Airline worked with the Isreali embassy in Albania and other sources in order to obtain the necessary security permits necessary, Shai Marine, the company’s commercial manager, told media.
Media reported that around 5,000 Albanian tourists are expected to visit Israel in 2008, while Albania has become a strategic tourist destination for Israel in the past year.
Israir Airlines is Israel’s second largest airline, said to have modelled itself on the American low-cost carrier JetBlue. It operates domestic flights, as well as international flights to New York City and European destinations.
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