rodopi – Cubilone's Dimension

Originally posted on our EVS at Sofia City Library blog.

Golyam Beglik is a lake in the Rodopi mountains that didn’t exist before 1951.

Since 2008 it’s also been a gathering place for people who believe in change and new possibilities and who want to have a good time surrounded by beautiful nature. Enter Beglika Fest, which has become one of Bulgaria’s biggest and most important summer festivals.

We hitchhiked to Beglika and back and camped there for a few days with Maria, Zanda, Miro and Daphne. Apart from a couple of stormy nights we (and our 20lv tents with the water resistance of my towel) had to endure, and the fact all the interesting workshops they had going there were almost exclusively in Bulgarian, we had an unforgettable time. Plus, it felt like we were part of something important, something ground-breaking.

I mean, dry toilets, hammocks, seed exchange, Suggestopedia, sailing, astronomy, kung fu, yoga and tasty vegetarian/vegan food all in one place – I will never forget that chocolate pancake and the vegan kyuftechta, never! What more can a person ask or hope for?

We didn’t get a chance to listen to all of the bands because of the bad weather during most of the nights, but also because the spatial and temporal layout of the stages made it difficult, at least for me, to follow everything. One band in particular, though, made an impression on me. Traditional Balkan sounds together with beatboxing and dubstep, you say?!

The following is a video I made out of all the videos I took from Beglika. It’s small and humble, there mostly to give you a small taste of what the Beglika experience was for our small international group.

As you might’ve been able to tell from the video, however, I’m definitely happier with our selection of photographs. Credits go to Daphne, Zanda, Maria and yours truly – can’t bother to do it for each one separately: