Here is a small extract of a recording session of Alatav, in a Istanbul Flat ; this is only the end of a song, sorry, but it is impossible to put a whole song video as blogs do not allow big size file downloads. For details about Alatav, please see others articles here. Enjoy.
Before arriving in Turkey we decided that we will have our van painted and undergo an anti-rust treatment ın Turkey. We had an estimate from a mechanic in Paris that it would costs us around 1.000 euros. This mechanic was willing to do it undeclared so the price was lower then what it should be officially. Officially the price was around 2.000 euros in France.
We asked our Turkish friend Metin living in Paris if he could facilitate a contact with a car mechanic in Istanbul for us. So Metin would do this through his brother living in İstanbul.
Ones in Istanbul our first mission was to go and find the Tuna Oto, Metin told us about in a suburb of Istanbul called Bahçelievler. We drove to the ındustrial site where we saw hunderds of car mechanics. Bahçelievler was apparantly the place to be to get your car fıxed. With our little knowledge of Turkish we asked at least fıve to six times for the indication where this Tuna Oto could be. One thing is to ask, the other thing is to understand the answer.
Finally we entered another office (Yurek Otomotiv) with the Ford logo in front to ask for the Tuna Oto. Before you knew it four people were trying to find the person we were looking for. They called the number we had and told us that the mechanic of Tuna Oto was not in, only the assistant. Of course they were curious why we were looking for Tuna Oto. The son of the owner named Fukan came with his laptop and started a conversation with Olivier through a translation system on the İnternet.
We wanted two things: 1. the anti-rust treatment 2. the van paınted ın a new colour
As they also had Ford spare parts we also asked for the two rear lights and 1 front light to be changed.
The conversation started around 2 o'clock in the afternoon and continued for hours. They brought tea, the mechanics came to look at our car. We saw the colours catalog. They brought us to theır garage to show us around. After the different talking, it came down to asking for the price. The first price they announced was 1.700 euros for an inside and outside paintjob or 1.200 euros only outside paint. Our mouths were wide open, impossible impossible. Olivier put all his flare into work to lower the price. Something like 17:00 or 18:00 hours we succeeded in bringing down the price. We agreed on the final price of 700 euros for the following things:
the anti-rust treatment
the van paınted in a new colour (specific code was indicated)
three lights changed (two rear and one in front)
We had to come back the following Monday (12th of October) to leave our car and have it ready 6 days afterwards.
When we arrived the following Monday other talking was necessary. The unlce of Fukan was handling the paperwork and everything needed to be put on paper. İt took us again 1,5 hours to get everything settled, signed and to pay the downpayment.
The Saturday 19/10/09 we went to pick up our car. From far off we could already see it and……………….suprise surprise the colour seems darker then what we expected.
Ones arrived at the ofice we were warmly welcomed by the whole family. They even brought a cousin along that could speak english. We inspected the car carefully and then we told them that the colour was not really the blue we asked for. They looked surprise and went in search of the catalog to check.
Guess what. We were rıght!!!
Appologies all over the place. Apparantly they wrote the colour code on a piece of paper which had on the other side a colour. The mechanic didn’t understand if he had to respect the code or the colour he was looking at on the backside of the paper.
Their suggestion was inviting us for lunch to clear matters. But we wanted to leave as soon as possible and not spent hours again eating lunch. So we accepted their appologies and suggested a 50 euros refund. They were not so willing at a start, but after some talking they agreed.
So finally we have a new Bubule colored like gendarmerie (fcontsabulary ın France) for a total price of 650 euros. İn the meantie we got used to the colour and we are happy with our new Bubule.
We arrived in Turkey on Monday the 5th of October. We are so not used to getting border control, therefore took us time to understand that we had to go through three different procedures at the custom before being able to enter the country. One of the procedures consisted of having your passport stamped. When they saw that I had the Dutch nationality they indicated that I had to pay for the tourist visa. Olivier with his french citizenship didn't have to pay anything, but I had to pay the sum of 15 euros.
But why ???
Well, I have my personal theory about it, offcourse it is not official. My theory is that the Turkısh government things (or knows) that hıs citizens are not always treated rightly in the Netherlands so they make Dutch pay when they want to visit Turkey. Seems to me as a fair treatment!!!
Ones in Turkey we found ourselves on a fabulous road to drive on. This was more then welcome after the bumpy Bulgarian roads. The first city we found after the border was Kirklareli. A quiet big city where we decided to stop and have our basics with us, meaning local money and a dictionary.
Life is so curious sometimes. We chose the image of the Turkish musician BurhanÖçal for our project and our first entrance in this country is rightly in the city where this same artists is born, Kirklareli.
The scene on the street was allready very different with a lot of people and activity on the street. The presence of Mosques, so the muslim religion. The call of the Muezzin to announce the time of prayer (you can hear the sound of the Muezzin in a seperate article already posted on this blog). A lot of men on the streets. The tea houses filled with men. Big difference with the countries we have been to until now.
Olivier and I decided that we will just walk around to get to know the city and see what the future brings. Passing by a shop a lady sitting outside started talking to us in french. It appeared to be a Turkish lady who grew up in Charleroi, Belgium and could speak the french language. Of course she invited us for tea and during the conversation she understood one of the purposes of our trip. She proposed us to spend the evening together and record her Saaz teacher. So said so done.
Saaz is a 7 cord instrument, typically Turkish. They play notes that are not known in western classical music, like the Re deux #. Seems that it is called ¼ tones, unknown in classical music.
Later that night when Aliyé closed down her shop we picked up Ali Balli (her teacher) and went to her house where we met with Tülay. First we had this wonderfull meal: freshly fried fish, home made salad and bread. We talked about our trip and Alıyé provided all the translation.
After the meal Ali played several traditional songs and accompanied his saaz by his voice. He played hıs saaz acoustic. It was very beautifull. Aliyé provided us the explanations what Ali was singing about. They were mostly songs about peasants life, people that work the land. Most of the songs were somewhat melancholic. Aliyé has been learning herself the instruments for about 10 months.
We had a wonderfull evening and are very gratefull to our Turkish friends for this first warm introduction to the Turkish culture. From this first night we knew that this country will be very interesting!!!!
Before leaving in direction of the Black Sea we passed by the shop to say good-bye to our new friends and headed in direction of a small village called Kiyiköy.
This village is a small fishermen village along the coast of the Black Sea. We decided to stay two nights her. We had a swim in the Black Sea as the wheather and the water temperature was very nice.
One of the evenings we had visitors at our van coming after the music they were hearing (Guitar and Saxophone). With our little knowledge of Turkish we still conversed a little with them and one genteleman (clarinet player) leardned me a string of notes.
In this little village it striked me that you don't see women in the streets. Besides girls probably coming or going to school, you only see men and boys. Where are the women ???
We visited a cave monastery that dated from the 6th century. It didn't so much brought into light, but still quiet good preserved giving the number of years.
After our two days of sun and sea we headed in direction of Istanbul. We drove 130 km and stopped in a town called Güzelce. On the road to Güzelce we celebrated our 6.000 km milestone (128.446 km). This town is at the coast of the sea called Marmara. We had another swim there. After our swim we had the fortune to see further in the sea some dolphins pasing by, it was very nice. It appears that there are quiet some dolphins at this spot.
On Friday the 9thof October we woke un early in the morning to head for Istanbul. At Güzelce we were only 30 km away from the city. But as the city is enormous it took us something like two hours to drive there and find a place to park in a neigboorhoud of Istanbul.
For those of you who wonder: güzel means 'beautiful' in the Turkish language.
Because we liked this band , we wanted to gıve you some additional informations about them. This is their press bulletin (photos are missing).
The Alatav Group was founded about four years ago but the musical past of the members goes back 15 years with very contrasting origins. It’s a professional but independent group. Despite having begun their journey playing with different bands, the members over time developed a common outlook which led to the current Alatav shape. The biggest difference between them and other groups is that they are completely outside the chain that dictates the commercial music world. With this conscious approach they have refused all attempts to be integrated in the world of record companies and deliberately have chosen to play in the streets where the biggest audiences can be found. Instead of just being classic buskers, they use the streets to record, produce and market their music. Apart from this, they also use modern media to offer free downloads of their work over the internet. (www.myspace.com/alatav )
The Alatav group predominantly uses the santur, guitar. ney and percussion instruments but for some performances the group also incorporates the kemence ( Turkish fiddle ) and saz. The regular players are;
Ahmet “Hemo” Öztürk : santur, gitar, vocals
Mübin Dünen ………..: ney, vocals
Gencer Savaş…………: percussion
Hakan Gürbüz ………..: percussion, guitar, vocals
Ulaş Deli………………: guitar, vocal
Murat “Dede” Öztürk….: guitar, percussion, vocals
The CV’s of the band can be found in the attachment.
The History of Alatav:
Led by Ahmet “Hemo” Öztürk, the Alatav group got together to work upon developing new interpretations of Anatolian folk music, sayings and compositions using the santur. Over time, Mübin Dünen introduced the ney, Gencer Savaş percussion and Hakan Gürbüz the guitar and bass. Having started playing in the streets, the group began to receive invitations and played at live music venues and, starting with events arranged by universities, at various festivals. Last of all they were joined by Ulaş Deli playing the guitar and Murat “Dede” Öztürk, whenever he has time off from other projects, playing a number of instruments. Still giving street performances, Alatav have received various invitations to play both inTurkeyand abroad but have yet to finalize a program.
As you all can see I used a french word to name this article. A word everybody understands as it is a vital part of the French culture. After having lived ten years in France, I have to ackownledge that you get used to this art of cuisine and I grately appreciate it. The main question in this article is;
What have we been eating on this trip since we left France last August ?
I decided to provide you a quick summary of the different dishes we tasted in the countries we have been going through until now.
You have to know that most of the time we prepare our own food in the van, but sometime we eat out in order to discover the cuisine of the visiting countries. I will be pinpointing the highlights for you.
Frankfurt:
Bratwurst (sausages) of all kinds, potatoes and a green sauce made of herbs to be eaten with potatoes (kartoffel) especially. To accompany these wonderfull dishes the german propose beer, beer and beer to men and women. We also drank Apfel Wine, a slightly sparkling wine made of apple.
Czech Republic:
They take some kind of white cheese and put bread-crumbs around it and fry it. It becomes a steak made of cheese. They accompany this steak with something called domplings. To form these domplings it seems that they pressed white bread together in order to form a circle. You shouldn't have been eating anything for about two days, if you don't want to get a stuffy fealing after eating this dish of white cheese and domplings. I called these domplings a spunch for beer.
They also make croquettes of potatoes. They take mashed potatoes form it in a little tube, put bread-crumbs on it and fry it. Sometimes they are home made and can be tastefull, but some restaurants serve you an industrial made croquette, so nothing particular abour it. In Czech Republic they have there own local Coca Cola which is called Kofola and is tasteful with much less sugar and carbonated then the american brand.
Vienna, Austria:
We stayed only 1 night and decided to have dinner in a Turkish restaurant. The following day we did go to the municipal swimmingpool and we were astonished in seeing so much obese and I mean not just fat. Men and women, young and old they were all very big and over-weighted. The snackbar at the swimmingpool was only selling fried stuff and sausages. So we thought if the Austrian eat mostly sausages, fried dishes and drink beer, no wonder they are so big.
Slovakia:
The few times we went to the restaurant in Bratislava we have eaten Italian food; pasta and pizza. So we didn't get the opportunity to really taste their typical dishes.
Hungary:
We liked very much this cold plum soup they make. We tried noodles made of potatoes with cream sauce made of sheep cheese. The white hungarian wine named Tokaj accompanied well the dish. We had a pancake/wafle with fruits and ice cream (typical dessert in Hungary). The struddle was also tastefull. It is like a thin pancake with different stuffing and rolled up. We tasted two that had a sweet ad sour taste; pumpkin & berries and cheese & fruits.
Rumania:
The best food we had until now in this trip was prepared by Maria Pantiru in Zece Prajini. She made us a ciorba (soup) of beans. The next day we also had a polenta accompanied with fresh white cheese of cow and a sausage. Just before leaving she made fritters filled with cheese with a vanilla sugar powdered on top. All her dishes were homemade and very tastefull. She prepared in a simple pan, a very good Turkish cafe for us.
In Oradea I asked the waiter to explain me a dish. She told me that it is veal, so decided to take it. Ones the meal was served I realised that it was tripe. It was ok to eat, but if you imagine veal and they serve you tripe, then you are somewhat dissapointed.
We had often ciobra in Rumania and it was very good. Sometimes it was accompanied with sour cream that made it even more tastefull. As a dessert, Olivier took a donut filled with ice cream, which was quiet heave as a dessert.
Bulgary:
As we were along the coast we had quiet a lot of fish. Everytime we ate somewhere, I took fish soup. The first place we have eaten, we took the only fish they had on the menu. It was a plate filled with small sized fishes, even smaller then sardines. The fishes were complete with head & tail and fried. Olivier and I took time taking off the head and cleaning the little fish (as it was not cleaned), but others in the restaurant finished before us as they were eating the whole thing in one bite. We had several times salad that was most of the time prepared with the same ingredients: tomatoe, lettuce, cucumber and red onion. Sometimes it had white cheese and black olives as a variety.
Turkey:
They also serve ciorba (soup). We had white bean soup and lentil soup, both of them very tastefull. The white bean soup is accompanied by rice as a side dish. With our friends at Kirkalerie we had fried fish, fresh catch of the day fried especially for us. Tülay made a salad (tomatoe, lettuce, olives, onion and parsley) accompanied with a simple and very tastefull salad dressing made of oil and lemon. As dessert we had a very sweet melon and wallnuts with their homemade honey.
I ate kofte, which is a meatball with tomatoe sauce. After every meal, actually the whole day you can drink çay (red tea) in Turkey. We had eggplant salad, green olives mixed with nuts and grenadines (very original). Turkish people like to eat spicy food, they can put pepper even in a salad, so watch out!! With some dishes they take Aryan, which is a yogurt drink slightly salted, which is not bad.
Offcourse we had the Turkish delight, the pastries made of fruit and covered with glacy sugar.
Until now the cuisine in Turkey seems to have bigger variety, even if you see the same dishes in all the restaurants.
In other words we are OK, but......................Damn, we miss the french cuisine!!!
I am starting to write this article with the view over the Black Sea. It is 6 o'clock in the evening, the sun will be going down shortly, which will provide us a splendid sunset. We stopped at a fishermen village called Ravda. We arrived in Bulgaria on Friday the 25th of September 2009. We left from Bucarest drove around 65 km and crossed the border of Rumania and Bulgaria at a town called Ruse. Actually the Danube river is also a natural border between these two countries. We had to pay 6 euros to cross the bridge that will take us to Bulgaria.
Ones in Bulgaria..........., wow, culture shock. We stopped at Ruse to change money and also buy the indispensable conversation guide. We only found a dictionnary and to realise that we will not be able to pronounce anything in this language. The bulgarian language uses Cyrillic alphabet. So if you don't know this alphabet you can't read. The lady in the shop explained us how to say "hello" and "thank you", but I am unable to repeat after her. In any case they also say "merci" for thanks, so piece of cake!!!
The first night we stayed in the Pricoden Park Rusenshilom. It was nice and quiet and we could relax after the busy city life of Bucarest. On the next day we drove in direction of the coast. We celebrated our 5.000 km milestone in a village called "Opaka". I thought that the scenery in Bulgaria was nice. There were high stones cliffs and quiet a lot of valleys. Later we understood that the region of Ruse is filled with caves were monasteries used to be settled in the middle ages
This country is the first one were we decided not to go to the capital. Sophia is situated in the west of the country and it would mean a big detour to come back to he east and go to Turkey. This choice was made, because we were very much attracted by the sea.
On the Sunday we arrived in Varna, which is the second biggest city of the country and is right on the coast of the blank sea. We decided to stay the night in a youth hostel that is very much recommended. X-Hostel (Waikiki) is not situated in the centre of Varna, but in a quiet neigbourhood at a 15 minutes walk to the beach. I was seduced by the garden of the hostel. A nice garden with bamboo trees and all kinds of fruit trees (grapes, kiwis, apples, kaki, etc) Daniel, the manager of the place make you feel at ease upon arrival. We spend a very nice evening there and slept as two roses. There internet site is www.xhostel.eu where you can find all information about the hostel.
The next day we spoke with Daniel and Adriana about our project to see if they knew any musicians we could meet. They spoke to us about their neighbours, Jordan & Sylvia Stoyanov that we met with later on. They also mentionned this other hostel in the centre of the city that often organises musical events. With that information, off we went in search of Bulgarian music. The same day we got a chance to take a wonderfull swim in the Black sea, wow nice moment.
Arriving at the other hostel, YoHo Hostel, the manager Stephan told us that he had some friends from Sophia staying in Varna that are Rap artists. We thought it could be a good opportunity to record rap music, as it a genre we didn't have until now. That night we were at their private party in the hostel, but unfortunately no Rap nor beat came out of the guys. Apparantly they were so exhausted of partying for the last three days that they didn't have the energy to continue for us. Nonetheless we had a nice evening and some interesting conversations with the guys.
We really liked Varna. Offcourse because of the sea, but also because the city is not so big, there are lots of trees everwhere and there is a good ambiance. We decided to stay two more days and get the chance to record Jordan & Sylvia who were performing on the Wednesday night in a restaurant. We didn't regret those two days, they were mostly about sea and relaxing. We even found a natural spring water just next to the beach with very hot water. They build a pool where mostly old men were dipping in the hot water. The first day we couldn't put more than our feet as the outside temperature was warm too. But the morning after it rained a little bit, so we stepped in easily. Very very nice!!!
There are lots of resorts at Varna as it seems a very touristic place. The Wednesday night we went to Riviera Beach Hotel Restaurant, where our friends Jordan & Sylvia were playing. Sylvia was on the keyboard and Jordan was playing an electric guitar and both of them were singing. They had an international repertoire of songs, in order to please the tourists (french, german, etc) in the place. The acoustics in the restaurant were not so great. It was a big room, but marber floors and big glass windows, so nothing was preventing the sound from escaping.
Later on we continued to the Classical Royal Piano bar that Jordan & Sylvia spoke to us about. There we met with Nelko Kolarov and Georgi Shopov. Nelko was playing extremely good the piano and Georgi was singing with a very nice voice. They agreed for us to record them. They played different songs and we recorded some covers of Deep Purple, a Russian song, a Bulgarian song and an instrumental one.We have saved in a seperate article on our blog one of their performances for you to listen and enjoy!! In a conversation with Nelko we understood that he playes for seven years with Robin Gibb (one of the BeeGees). He told us that he toured allmost the whole world giving concerts. He confessed that he didn't go to France and to my astonishment he mentioned even Aruba. I told him that I forgive him for being so close to Curacao and not going............... Georgi told us that his profession is painter. He gave us his myspace where we can listen to his music and also see his works of art. Myspace.G_Voice
Before leaving Varna, we visited the Aladza Monastery that dated from the 13th century build in caves. After that visit we headed in direction of the south to the city called Burgas. In Burgas our mission was to find the Burgas Hostel, the guys of Varna told us about. When we found the hostel, we entered to ask for the rap artists we were told about. After something like 30 minutes we met the two Ivan's: Ivan Gaydarov and Ivan Perckemliev. They are the managers of the hostel and also the two rap artists of the group called Nokaut. After explaining them the purpose of our visit, they agreed to rap for us later that evening. Later on we returned and benefit from a private little concert of Nokaut. Even if the acoustics were not ideal, we still succeeded in recoring nice tunes. Obviously we were not understanding a thing they were rapping about. They explained to us that they were part of Old School Rap and that their lyrics are not commercial. They rap about their beleifs and have a politic stand about things in the society. You can listen to one of their rap songs we put in a seperate article on our blog. The next day they had a gigg (Rap jargon to say Concert) programmed in another city. We declined the offer as it would have mean a very big detour for us, who are heading to the south east and not to the west. You can listen to their songs and also download freely from their internet site: nokaut.cult.bg The guys invited us to stay one night for free in their hostel after having spend a very nice evening with them and their friends.
On the Saturday we left Burgas in direction of the southern end of Bulgaria. We had the impression to be in Britanny in France. The weather changed completely becoming grey and with rains. The coast was more rocky, less beaches with white sand as we were used to in Varna and Bulgary. We visited little towns like Sozopol, Tsarevo. We also visited two little towns were sometimes there are rituals of women dancing on fire. Kosti and Bulgari were very quiet now, as the rituals occur in june around a christian holiday.
The Sunday we drove in direction of the direction of Turkey. The distance was not so long, but the road was full of holes. When you thing that they make you pay a road tax, you sometimes ask yourself for what? It is a good thing that we didn't pay this tax, playing the tourist that don't understand........... We were also driving in a mountaineous area with a lot of fog, so driving through that was very tiresome. After driving for about 80 km we had the impression that we drove for miles. We spend the night in a town called Markilovo, before heading for the other side of the border.
When leaving Cluj-Napoca, our next destination was the Moldova region in Rumania. The exact number of kilometers we drove, I am not sure about anymore, but we left Cluj-Napoca on a Tuesday and arrived the Friday (18/09/09) morning in the village we wanted to be. The drive was nice, as the countryside was different from Transylvania to Moldova. It seems that the Moldova region is the poorer region of Rumania and indeed the houses were more modest.
The reason why we were going to this particular village, was because back in Paris a Rumanian friend of a colleague of Olivier, who's name is Costica (a.k.a Costello) told us about this village and his muscians. Costica advised us to go in this village as there are a lot of musicians here and he gave us the name of this family he knew. He wrote in a few words in Rumanian language our intention, so we can show to the people in the village in order to avoid problems with our lack of the Rumanian language.
So that Friday we arrived in the village called Zece Prajini, which is a tiny little village in the Moldova region. We asked around and offcourse it didn't took us a lot of time to get to the house of family Pantiru. The first person we made acquiantance with, was the grandfather of the family. We showed the little note that Costica wrote for them and were immediately welcomed in. Olivio Pantiru who spoke a little french, showed us to the house of his parents and informed us that his father will be arriving in a few hours.
Indeed after approximately two hours the family seemed very much complete. We met with Costica Pantiru (father), Didica Pantiru (son) and his wife (Lacramioara) and their two children (Bianca & Alex), another son called Mihai Pantiru, a daughter Gabriella Pantiru and the wife and mother Mariana Pantiru. We started explaining our project and also showed our little note that Costica from Paris left for them.
Costica Pantiru (a.k.a. Tuta) explained to us that they have a fanfare with 10 musicians and that they play gipsy music. Their recordings are live and without the use of any remixing afterwards. Costica is the head of the fanfare and makes the different arrangements. The name of their band is Fanfare Shukar.
Thanks to their way to making music, they had a lot of successes already. This fanfare had a very important contract with a theater group in France. It is a very known circus in France called Zingaro with the artist Bartabas as the leader. It is a circus with performance of horses and acrobates, nothing like the traditional circus we know. For the last 3,5 years, the fanfara Shukar played the music in the last performance of Zingaro. Together with this circus the fanfara had a chance to travel in different countries like France, Japan, Turkey, Hong Kong and many many others. So we had in front of us members of a fanfara with a great curriculum.
Tuta explained to us that it was impossible for us to record the fanfara as some members do not live in the village Zece Prajini so difficult to reunite everybody at a short notice. But it was possible to record an orchestra, meaning three muscians that will play some of their tunes. So indeed the following day we had performance of three musicians, keyboard, saxophone and trumpet. Didic and Olivio played alternatively on the keyboard. Mihai and Didic also played alternatively on the saxophone. And Craciun Trifan played the trumpet.
I lent Didic my saxophones for him to play on it..........
It was so amazing, he was playing so fast I could hardly keep up with my eyes. The extraordinary thing is that they all play and learned by listening to music. They have their hearing skills so much developped and learned to play like that. They start playing at a very young age. In the previous article of Olivier you can enjoy some tunes they played for us.
I also want to take the opportunity to really promote this fanfara Shukar. They have a myspace where people can hear their music, which is the following:
They have their last CD which is called Fanfara-Shukar volume 8, 2009. If you want to obtain their CD or contact them, the best way is to send an email to Didica Pantiru on his email adress: pantiru_didica.yahoo.com
To all the Rumanians we spoke about them since me left Zece Prajini, they all knew this village and that there are muscians living there.
That evening Didica was playing with two other muscians at a wedding party in a close by town called Roman. He suggested us to come over and record them. So we did!!! The bride and groom agreed with our presence. We assisted at a very festive wedding party. Young and old were dancing all night long. There was live music from our gypsy friends and also CDs. We had a good oppportunity to record more nice music. This time, the trio changed a bit, but the instruments stayed the same: Didica playing the saxophone, Craciun playing the trumpet and Constantin Lazar playing the keyboard and singing at the same time.
During our stay in Zece Prajini, we were welcomed very warmly. We could stay the night in the newly build house, we were spoiled with wonderfull cooked dishes by Marianna Pantiru. The hospitality of this family is remarcable.
We learned also that the Pantiru family are gypsies from the ethnical background Ursari. Within the gypsie community we find many different ethnic background. The Ursari are very much known and appreciated for their music.
Words are not enough to thank this family for their hospitality, their kindness and the facility with which they openen up to us and provide us this opportunity to share a piece of their culture with them.
The next town we were planning to visit after leaving Roman the next day was Vaslui. Our Rumanian friend of Paris gave us a name of a tumpet player that is living there. Ones in the town, we tried a few cafe's and offcourse it didn't take us a lot of time to be in contact with musicians. We didn't find our trumpet player as he was playing cards in another town. But we did bump into a the Rapsodia Vasluiului, a ten musicians orchestra playing in a parc for free. Their repertoire was Folcloric music from the region of Vaslui. The manager of the orchestra agreed for us to record their performance.
Our visit of Vaslui was short as we succeeded in doing everything in one afternoon. So the same day off we went in direction of Bucarest.
After driving for 250 km we arrived in Bucarest on the Monday. Driving in Rumania is a sport. The roads are not so good as there are a lot of holes. Pietons walk along the road but more on the road then next to it. Then there are the chariols with the horses that are not lighten up at night. So when it become dark, it is a big concentration execise to drive around. But even during the day it is a sport!! So obviously it took us some time to get to Bucarest. On top of it other Rumanians didn't have such a good impression o fthe city. They were telling us that driving in the city is next to impossible, that its dirty and that there are a lot of thieves.
Offcourse ones you arrive and see for yourself you realise how people can exagerate. Driving in Bucarest is not different then driving in Paris. There are areas in the city where buildings are a little destroyed or not maintained properly. At the same time the city doesn't seem so stressfull as it becomes very quiet during the night, all the stressing trafic is gone and there are several parcs.
Next to the old buildings there is this huge parlament building, built during the communist era that is inlisted in the world guinness book of records. So things are not always so easy and clear as ones thinks
The first night we spend in a somewhat expensive hotel "Casa Victor". The second night in a very cheap one "Hostel Cazare" (not recommended !!) that impede us from a restless night. The other nights we stayed in our van next to a parc.
In Bucarest we met with a friend from a friend living for the last three years in the city. Jonas Mercier agreed for us to interview him about his life in Rumania and Bucarest in particular. Jonas is very delighted by the city and he gave us a 45 minutes interview and shared his view with us.
From a muscial perspective we had a nice encounter with Vlad Lica (a.k.a SJCongo). Ones in Bucarest, we didn't want to find folkloric or gypsie music, but look for more modern music in order to show the diversity in the country. SJCongo is a musician creating and making electric music. When we entered his appartment we couldn't beleive our eyes. It was a two bedroom apartment, in which the living room was transformed in a working space for SJCongo. A 10 square meter room was filled with keyboards, PC screens, samplers and I don't know what other devises and equiped that produce sound. SJCongo performed lively for us and we recorded his music for about 45 minutes. We still need to save a track in order to put it on the blog. During the recording SJCongo also provided us an interview in which he explains how he proceeds with his work. You can find more about his art on his myspace: www.myspace.com/sjcongo
During our stay in Bucarest, there was a music festival going on named after a great Rumanian composer George Enescu. We succeeded in getting tickets to go and listen to one concert. It was a concert of the trio called Paintings with Mr. Novikov at the piano, Mr.Unt at the contre bass and Mr. Melvin at the percussion. The piano was playing classical beethoven, Tchaikovsky music and the contre bass and percusionist were improvising on it. It seemed as a mixture of classical and jazz music. Unfortunately the acoustics in the room was not ideal for us to record. There was a strange machine sound that intervened during the concert.
We left Rumania with a very positive feeling about this country and especially its people. We extend a mulţumesc (thank you in Rumanian) to each one of them for their hospitality and there willingness to share their culture and music with us.
We arrived in Roumania on Saturday the 12th of September. Because of the size of this country, we thought that we would be staying a least two weeks. Our first destination was the region of Transylvania. Roumania is divided into four big cultural regions; - Transylvania, that starts at the border with Hungary and finds its natural borders in the mountain chains of Carpate (South West). - Moldava, that starts where Transylvania ends in the east and finishes at the border with Moldavia. - In the thirth region called Valachie the capital of the country, Bucarest, is situated and is situated in the South Western region of the country - The fourth region called Dobroudja has its limits in the East with the Black Sea
Our visit in the region of Transylvania lasted for 5 days. Obviously this is not enough to understand the culture, the history and everything.
I will still try to give an introduction to the things I think I understood. While in Cluj-Napoca we met very nice people (Hungarians) that welcomed us wonderfully and I got further explanation from Timea about the history of Transylvania. This part of the country used to belong to Hungary. After the II WW, Hungary gave this part of the country to Roumania. The Hungarians that were living in the teritory at that time got the Roumanian nationality, but from a cultural perspective they continued to consider themselves Hungarians. This Hungarian community continues to speak Hungarian, cultivate their Hungarian culture and send their children to Hungarian schools. Other ethnicgroups you can find in Transylvania are the gipsies. I thought that the people we met, had prejudice against the gipsies.The roumanians we met, tend to think that gipsies rob, beg, have a lot of children etc.......... The gipsies represent approximatively 2,5% of the Roumanian population. This percentage is probably on the low side, as people do not always say loudly that they are gipsy.
After this brief (somewhat political) introduction, I will go more in details of our journey in Transylvania.
Our first stop was in a town called Oradea. As it was saturday night, we thought having more chances to meat muscians. Actually there were a lot of places to go out, have some drinks, but no live music in any of these bars. While walking in a neigbourhood, Olivier heard music coming from a courtyard and decided to go inside.
We realised that it was a weddingparty and just when we decided to leave, the groom invited us to join the party. So there we were in the middle of a wedding party. There was a band playing, but the acoustics in the room were not appropriate for us to record. The groom invited to us to eat, drink, and enjoy the evening.
Shortly after our arrival, a 15th year old curious roumanian boy that spoke good english called, Sibi, came and talk with us.
The next day we left for the city called Cluj-Napoca, which is apparantly the 3 or 4 city of Roumania in size. The reason we went to Cluj-Napoca is because an Hungarian musician in Budapest, Eri Marton, suggested us to go their and ask for a musician called Sandor Neti (a.k.a Alexander). Eri told us that everybody knows Alexander. We thought that it would be a little difficult to ask for somebody in such a big town. But still off we went the Monday to the Tourist Information Center to ask for this gentleman. The lade at the tourist office knew immediately in which neigboorhood we had to go and look for this gentleman. It appears that the first name Sandor is a gipsy name and that they live in a suburb of Cluj-Napoca called Baciu. So off we went to Baciu, looking for Sandor Fodor Neti (in the meantime we got the complete name).
Arriving in Baciu, we asked in the first minimarket we found and, yes, there was a gentleman that could inform us that Sandor Fodor Neti died four or five years ago. He suggested us to lead us to the house of the son of Sandor Fodor Neti, who used to play violin too. The son nicknamed Sanyo was not at home, so we decided to come back later. While in Baciu we stayed in a bar waiting for the hours to go by and return to Sanyo's house. The bar is held by Maria, our Hungarian friend with Roumanian nationality. Maria immediately called her sister Timea who came to rescue her with english speaking clients. We spent a wonderfull time with Maria, Timea and Barbara (maria's daughter). They offerered us a warm hospitality and gave us more indepth information about Roumania, Hungary in their beliefs.
Actualy at Cluj-Napoca we were more in search for acoustic sound to record. We did have a look at the program of concerts in different bars of the city, but we didn't want to record amplified music. At the tourists information center of Cluj-Napoca, they also suggested us to go to the Academia de Muzica GH Dima where we could meat musicians or obtain information. So we went to this school and met by chance with Sorina Georgescu, a teacher at the school and a wonderfull piano player. She explained to us that the school didn't start yet, programmed for the 1st of October.
Some students were practicing in order to run an audition for a place in the masterclass. If the students agreed, we could record them during their training. So Tuesday we went back to the school and could register great private performance of piano and trompetist.
On the piano we had Sorina Georgescu and on the trompet we had Florin Dumitrescu. Picture de Florin and his trumpet, 1676, Cluj-Napoca
They played one contemporary musical piece from a Roumanian composer, Georges Enesco and also a classical piece from an Austrian composer called J.N. Hummel. You can hear this musical piece in this article. When they finished, another student took the piano, Alida Luplescu, and accompanied Florin on the trumpet. It was exactly what we were looking for.
We truly thank all the musicians for their performance.
The students explained to us that the music academie in Cluj-Napoca is the second one in Roumania, after the one in Bucarest. The school is very demanding and it is very diffcult to get in. In general Cluj-Napoca seemed an important city for its university. It appears that as of October first the population of the city becames much more important ones the classes start.
This is "Konzert fur trompete in B und orchestra" interpreted by Florin and Sorina. The microphones are positionned in "ORTF" mode , 110 ° angle, cardioides microphones are separated by 17 cm, situated at 1,15 meter high, at a distance of approx. 1m of the piano (outside) and 2m of the trumpet; not in front of the trumpet, but at an angle of 25° more or less. The room is quite big (approx 100 m²) ,wich is big for only two instruments. So conditions are not ideal but the sound is ok. Enjoy !
On that same Tuesday, we tried to get in contact again with Sanyo, but we didn't succeed.
While in Cluj-Napoca, we also visited the Etnological museum of Transylvania. The museum has pieces that date from the 18 and 19 century. At the museum we could get a view of the rather rural life in Transylvania. When we left the city, we did notice that this rural life is still valid outside of the cities. The countryside is completely different and the housing and habits of people seemed world apart from what could be seen in the city. As we didn't want to stay too much longer in Cluj-Napoca, we left the city on the Wednesday the 16th of September in direction of the Moldava region.
Before leaving the region of Transylvania we made a stop at Toplitta, where we stayed in a Penziune. There we met with Claudio Holerca who is a marathon runner and is going to participate in the marathon scheduled in Bucarest on the 25th of October. We hope he will win!! At the town called Maioresti we celebrated our 4.000 km milage. The meterstand of Bubule hit the 126.446 km milestone.
On Saturday (05/09/06) After visiting Banska Bistrica in Slovakia, we tried to cross the border and go to Hungary. The only thing is that we didn't have a map sufficiently detailed, so we spend time driving in and out of little villages looking for a way out of Slovakia. Finaly we succeeded in crossing the border in a town called Balassagyarmat. We stayed the night in the whereabouts and went in direction of Budapest the following day, which was at 100 km away.
Before arriving in Budapest, we stopped in a town called Vac (to be pronounced as Vaats). Without any money, the Hungarian Forint, no idea about the currency and without any knowledge of the language. Vac is a cute little town, where they have done archealogical research and found things dated from the 12 century in the middle of the town.
The town in situated at the banks of the Danube river. Ones we succeeded in getting money out of the bankdistributor, we decided to go and have a coffee in a nice café not far from the Danube river. There we had an unexpected and great encounter. We met Eszter, who could speak good english, we had a talk with her about the purpose of our trip. At the end of the conversation we agreed in callingEsztertwo days later and see if we can meet and record the singing of a good friend of hers that has a magnificent voice.
We then continued our journey to Budapest and arrived there later that sunday afternoon. We visited the citadelle in the city, just at the banks of the Danube river. From the top of the Citadelle we had a nice view over the city and also the imposing river cutting the city in two sides. The Monday the whole day went in running aronds. The van had a little hickup. Everytime we were driving in the first and second gear it made an awful sound. We decided to let a ford dealer looked at it. After our second attempt we found a Ford dealer that could repair it. It was nothing serious, the only think is that there was a rubber band who lost its elasticity and was making this awfull sound. For 15 euros and two hours of waiting we succeeded in getting it repaired, so off we went again.
On that evening we decided to go in search of musicians. We were hoping to find nice places this time, as the evening before we didn't succeed in finding a nice cosy neigbourhood where young people go out, have some drinks and some fun. This time we were better equiped as we got a small newsmagazine of the city in which we found information about bars, cafés and discos where live music is played. We found a bar named Potkulcs that had music programmed the following night. That night we assisted in another pub to the performance of a boysband composed of three musicians (guitar, battery, bass) and a singer playing Sting music in a pub (every breath you take, every move you make...............).
Discovering the city that night I got the strong impression that there is something mysterious about this city. In the night the streets are a little bit dark, as the streetlights are very dimmed. The places to go out are hidden behind walls and in building you don't expect anything. Two bars we found were in buildings that seemed abandonned. In one of the bars, the bartender explained to us that the building used to be appartment building were people used to live. A real estate entrepreneur paid everybody out of the building with the intention of having the old building tore down and to construct new appartments. The only thing he/she apparantly didn't take into consideration was that the old building was classified as patrimoine of the city, so the autorities refused for him to demolish the building. So he decided to create a cultural centre where artists expose their art and in the court there is a bar where people can have drinks. I thought that the misterious side of the city, made it a perfect place to make a movie about clandestine political groups during a time of dicatorship..........
In order to know more about the city, I visited the Historical Museum of Budapest in the castle on the left bank of the Danube river. So this capital, declared as such in mid 19th century. A few years before proclaming the city as the capital, the two sites of the river, one side called Buda and the other side called Pest were reunificated. The Turks (Ottoman Empire) invaded and occupied part of Hungary. They arrived until Buda (where they stayed for 1,5 century), they didn't succeeded in crossing the river, so Pest remained in the hands of the Austrians. The reunification of the two cities took place one century later after the western allies succeeded in getting the Turks out of the country.
On the Tuesday we went to listen to the band we knew where playing Hungarian Folk music in the bar Potkulcs. The band played music from the North Eastern region of Hungary. The artists agreed with us registering their performance. So the band, called Renkontra (the leader of the band is Mate Hegedus, who was playing the violin himself ) composed of 4 to 5 musicians and 1 singer. The instruments were two violin, one contrebass and one symballum. I didn't know this instrument.
The instrument was like a table with strings attached to it. The gentleman was playing it with two sticks. On the top of the sticks it seemed as though he had cotton balls attached at one end. After their performance we had a small talk with a few of the musicians who were curious about the recordings. In general we noticed that people are nicely surprised about the good sound quality that comes out of the recording equipment.
By Wednesday we celebrated in Budapest our 3.000 kilometers milage and we went back to Vac in the afternoon, because in the meantime Eszter confirmed us that we could meet the singer that same day. It is a good thing that we had our contract translated by Paige Mitchel, our favorite translator we already mentioned with her agency called Le Sens (a big thanks to her!!!). This contract specifies matters between us the producers and the artists, stating that we will not make commercial usage of any recording and that the product of our journey, the CD will be distributed for free. Anita Nabelik and her manager wanted things to be putten on paper. As the paper was ready, we only needed to fill it out and sign it. Thanks to the help of Eszter who translated everything in Hungarian, we succeeded in understanding eachother and making everything clear. We had a private performance from Anita, singing three Folk Hungarian songs for us, with an amazing voice. She was not accompanied by any musicans, but that was not necessary taking into consideration that she fills the room with her voice.
We truly thank all the artists for their performance and the fact that they agreed with us recording their music. Also a thank you goes to Eszter for having organized this nice encounter with Anita and all the precious help she gave us in bridging the language barrier. That evening we stayed in a town called Veroce in the north of Vac on the banks of the Danube river.
In the meantime we bought a more detailed map and went in search of a quiet place to stay two days. We saw that by leaving the Budapest region and going to the East we will find parks. First wefound ourselves in a part that looked like "Argentina Pampas", completely flat with no trees in the horizon giving us the impression that we are in a park.The following day, we did find the Hortobagy Nemzeti Park, where we decided to stay among the mosquitos before leaving Hungary. In the park different kind of birds breed and live. Finally we stayed Thursday and Friday night in the region and hit the road with direction to Roumania today Saturday 12 of September.
Hungary:
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