no healing today
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This post is about a 25km walk from Pazardzhik to the Slavovitsa Winery. I want to visit a spiritual center, but no one is home.
The day was grey and the weather forecast said that there was going to be rain in the afternoon.
the youth
I walked out of Pazardzhik, remembering a conversation from the night before. I had been walking around in a pedestrian zone, looking for a place to get some food. When I asked a group of high school students it turned out that they spoke good English. We talked about this and that, and when I pointed to an anti-LGBTQ graffito on the wall, they explained to me that it was usually younger kids who made these.
“15-year-olds,” they said, “they just want to provoke. We try to reason with them, but it’s not easy.”
the spiritual center
There wasn’t much traffic on the way out of Pazardzhik, and I was grateful for it. There were fields and trees on both sides of the road, and sometimes I would see a memorial to a person who hadn’t survived.
When I arrived in Vinogradets it seemed like a typical Bulgarian village: quiet, with some of the houses in good shape and others abandoned. There was a large building that lay in ruins. I wondered what it had been, maybe a school or maybe an administrative complex.
wine instead of doves
I went to an address I had found on the internet. It was called Spiritual Center Nash dOM. According to their website the founders had healing powers, and they liked to give talks and let doves fly. I wanted to hang out with them and see what it was all about.
Sadly, when I got there the spiritual center was closed and nobody was home. I tried ringing all of the half dozen or so door bells that they had. I tried knocking. I tried waiting. I tried sending a message via Instagram. None of it worked. There would be no talks and there would be no doves and there certainly wouldn’t be any healing.
Then I gave up and walked on until I reached a winery. Nobody was there, either, but when I called the number on the door somebody came from the village and opened up a guest room for me.
And then the rain came down.
pictures
Prefab facade in Pazardzhik:
Memorial to a woman near Pazardzhik:
The road to walk from Pazardzhik to the Slavovitsa Winery:
Memorial to Smilen and Dimitr near Pazardzhik:
Good luck charms?
A tank on display in Boshulya:
Farmhouses:
Totalled car in Vinogradets:
Abandoned building:
Spiritual Center Nash dOM:
The end of the road to walk from Pazardzhik to the Slavovitsa Winery:
The Slavovitsa Winery and the three doggos that guard it:
The rain:
