A Little More About Bela Crkva
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A Little More About Bela Crkva |
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| What can I say about the town that became my home for three weeks? More importantly, do I have enough room to say it all? It felt surprisingly small to me, considering the population is 5 times that of Wolfville. Originally, I presume the church was the centre and all the streets grew outwards. Note: You might want to have a gander at the Map of Bela Crkva I have included while reading this. The life of the town focuses around 3 main streets: 1 (or "prvi" meaning "first") Oktobra (main street), Partizanska, where I stayed at #52, and Marsal Tita (Marshall Tito). I was not surprised to hear that the post office is on Tito avenue... The Free Market as well as the Catholic graveyard are 1 and 2 blocks respectively past TRG on 1 Oktobra. The Orthodox graveyard is down Partizanska, up one street and a right turn. "White Church" and the tiny local museum are further up 1 Oktobra, past the intersection with Partizanska. The church is just past the police station which I had to check in with on my first day. To get to the lakes, you go down to Tito again and drive straight for about 7 minutes. Complicated as this sounds,with the exception of the lakes, everything was within easy walking distance, which was good as we walked a lot. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| While in the country, I had to carry this card on me at all times. I was never asked to show it to anyone, not even in Belgrade. The local police hardly seemd to care that I was there at all - not exactly the reaction I had expected! | ||||||||||||||||||||
| The morning of my first Wednesday in town, we walked over to the Orthodox cemetery as it was a religious holiday. I heard the bells ringing as I woke up. On this day, people go to pay their respects to their ancestors. We bought flowers from a neighbour (her prices are cheaper than even the Free Market, 10 dinars, or less than 30 cents, for two bunches of flowers!), and made our way over to the graveyard. It is in the poor part of town on a dusty, unpaved street, but I thought it was beautiful. The grounds are not well-kept and the grass grows wild, but somehow this made it more lovely, with wildflowers and bees buzzing. The graves were a mix-match of many generations and cultures: Russian, Serbian, Greek, Romanian, Bugarian... Bela Crkva is and has always been a very cosmopolitan and tolerant town, a fact which pleasantly surprised me, the Westerner, who gleaned most of her knowledge of this country from CNN and the like. The best part of the visit to the graveyard, besides the feeling of peace I experienced, was the lovely old ladies at the entrance selling flowers and candles. They saw my camera and immediately wanted to be subjects. I felt like I was on assignment for National Geographic! They, as well as the cemetery itself, are pictured below. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Besides the graveyard, I found other unexpected places of simple beauty, most of which were in the private homes of friends and family in the town. The first time I stepped through the large garage doors that separate houses from the street, it felt like I was in Northern Italy or what I have imagined Northern Italy to look like as I have never been. There are plants everywhere, a lot palms and other tropical species. There are cats and kittens and chickens and overhanging trees of either honeysuckle or some other flowering plant that drop their blossoms all over the inner courtyards. I had a terrace off my room and I would go outside almost every morning and marvel that something so pretty existed in such a hot, dusty, "economically challenged" place. Below is a picture of the courtyard of the house of the man who filled out the application form for my police I.D. card. Beside it is "White Church." | ||||||||||||||||||||
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