A Monk and his 4 x 4 Lada
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Prilep,
Macedonia
Monday, October 23, 2006
Our friend from Michigan we met on the bus to Skopje said that the Treskavec monastery above Prilep was Macedonia's Must-See. We arrived in Prilep at three in the afternoon and caught a taxi to the base of the moutain the monastery sits upon, some ten kilometers from the city. When the cab could go no further, the driver let us out, took our money, and pointed some directions to the top.
It did not appear to be far away, perhaps fourty five minutes' hike at the most. The driver pointed out white rock that was a natural spring and then from there we just had to hang a left to get to the little monastery building. It looked very quaint, in the distance, like a alpine cottage. Fall had set in and we could see little orange shrubs at the monastery's base.
Well, not quite. The walk turned took us three hours because we had to ascent 1250 meters, according to our altimeter. The orange "shrubs" were full sized trees. The water spring had a six foot wall painted white, and the quaint little monastery building that we saw from below is the size of a barn.
We reached it minutes before sunset. We met a fellow named Goran who showed us a room as as simple as it gets. There were six iron cots with blankets, and a ceiling light overhead. Apart from that, there were four little windows and the walls were white plaster.
Two other people were preparing a meal in the kitchen and they invited us to have some of it. Afterwards it was quite dark and we couldn't look around for lack of light. Goran chatted with us for a while about his visit to the monastery and our travels. He was floored that we had actually visited Kosovo. Goran has nothing against regular Albanians, but Kosovars are different, since he has taken great offence by what the KLA army has done to Orthodox churches in its territory (having vandalised some, burned others... see my previous entries on Kosovo. I myself render no judgements).
Waking up to fresh air on Monday morning was an absolute joy. The polluted air in Skopje was affecting my lungs and but I woke up feeling great. We didn't feel like doing much of anything so we read on the porch that faces the court yard, and it has a partial view of a valley that stretches out for kilometers.
At breakfast we met the only resident monk at the monastery. His name was Karlist (or Calist if you ask Bro). Despite wearing the garb of a monk, he admitted that he was not officially a monk yet, but an Orthodox version of an acolyte. His outfit was a black hat and a long black robe that reached his feet. His beard has grown down to his chest. To officially become a monk, he said it could take him 10 years. He's working at being a monk.
Or something like one. Normally, that is a life of solitude, obedience, worship and labour. It's become harder with to the number of tourists that the monastery has this year.
Karlist has worked at the monastery now for nearly three years. Before that, he lived in Skopje and was an economist, until he decided that he wanted to be a monk and the Church sent him up to the monastery. In his first year, there were perhaps ten visitors. Then, Lonely Planet put the monastery in their Eastern Europe guidebook and he had more than a fourty visitors. As of this year, with the new LP on the West Balkans, he
had about fourty visitors a week during the summer months.
Karlist plays tour guide, cook, entertainer, etc. to all of them. It isn't quite the life of a monk that he expected. But he says that at least all those who arrive are guests worthy of his attention, because in order to get to the top, one must be chosen. It is really a rough climb, but I'm not saying that just because I did it. The monk is glad that there is no good road up to the top, otherwise he would never have any time to be a monk.
This phenomenon caused by the success of the LP guidebook makes me understand now why some sites of tourist interest are deliberately left out of guidebooks. In this monastery's case, the visitors are not a bad thing. However, it is easy to imagine that if the monastery had twice as many visitors a week, it would be untenable.
It's pretty understandable that Karlist looks forward to the solitude of Winter. He has no guests for months at a time and then he can assume his monkly obligations of prayer, work and worship. A group of Dutch people climbed up last week, but this week we were the only guests apart from Goran and the two others staying for the month (but they are working). So it is slowing down.
We asked him about how it was to be alone in the winter. Cats are his only company. They are essential in the monastery, as there are many small snakes and lizards that need to be caught. In his first year, he fed his cats too much and there was a real problem with poisionous snakes. Then he learned to feed them only in the winter when the lizards aren't out, and now the monastery stays pest free. It seems like a learning experience: his first year, all of the pipes froze and karlist had no water. I asked about using snow, and he told me that it takes a huge pile of it to make just a pan of water. Having no showers was the least of his worries!
Nevertheless, He was quite willing to tell us about the monastery. Archaeologists have found the remains of a city where the monastery is that dates to the fourth century BC. It has had church since the 4th century AD, when a it was built upon the fountations of an older temple of Apollo. The site was converted into a monastery in the 9th century. Under Serbian governance, it grew until by the 14th century it was the home to more than 500 monks and it was a fortified castle with enough space to fit the Serbian King and his entourage.
That was until the Turks conquered the region. They razed the fortess. Karlist pointed out the little that remains of the walls. It was difficult to get a sense of how big it once was. On a bit of natural rock 25 meters up, we could see part of the wall. By our feet was the foundation of the same wall, that rose ust as high to form a massive curtain around the monastery (when I can post photos, you can see how different it looks now). For the meantime, look here.
At the heart of the Treskavec monstery's is a church. The interior is under excavation. Layers of walls are being removed to reveal ancient frescoes beneath. In parts the floor has been dug up to reveal ancient foundations. It is a world heritage site now and soon it will be restored to how it was in the 14th century, from when the greater part of the church dates. But of particular interest to us was a glass case with fifteen skulls in it, tucked into an alcove.
We could not resist asking to whom these skulls once belonged. The remains of monks are dug up every so often to make space for new arrivals in the graveyards. Exhumed bones are placed in an ossuary we couldn't visit, but these skulls were placed beside icons.
Our breakfast consisted of bread and a red paste called Ajver. It is made all across the South Slavic states and it consists of Paprika and eggplant, cooked and cooked and cooked. It really is quite delicious, and it has a great consistency. The closest thing I can compare it to is antipasto, but it doesn't seem to contain tomatoes. Our new friend told us that recently, a Slovene company had tried to claim the "Ajver" name for itself. Macedonians fought it in an international court and won to keep the name of their favourite food. It is everywhere across the Balkans and we could see their love of it quite openly. Scores of red peppers hang from the walls of every house, drying in the sun. More than one person on the street has been spotted with carrier bags packed with the things.
Instead of having to walk down back to Prilep, Karlist offered us a ride in his Lada 4x4. We are only the second people he has driven down, because he doesn't go very often. Today he needed to pick up a carpenter to do some work before winter arrives, and few people have vehicles capable of making the trip (even some who have good SUVs have got stuck... the former Dutch Ambassador to Macedonia has had to get towed out more than once. Not to say that he is not "chosen" but perhaps that was what Karlist meant about walking up). Sometimes he has to winch up the Lada to put stones underneath the wheels to get good traction to get up and every year the road washes out! We saw a few piles of cobblestones on the way along, because someone once had the idea to pave the road. The idea didn't go further than that though.
This is getting long so I'll bring the entry to a close. Karlist got us to the bus station where we waited for our bus to Ohrid. We had a fantastic time and it is easily one of the best places we've visited yet. Unfortunately, a bit of a punch up happened in the parking lot just before our bus arrived and although we were not involved the atmosphere was tense as everyone nearby assembled waiting for the cops to arrive. The bus pulled right into the middle of this crowd and somewhere in between getting our bags on the bus and getting on the bus, our watch got lost forever.
