MY TRIP IN BULGARIA 'FAMOUS' MAYOR Tom Winarski (left), retired from Chase Bank, Houghton Lake, is interviewed by a Bulgarian television station while on an archaeological dig in Mezdra, Bulgaria. Winarski, who is serving his third term as mayor of Gladwin, was questioned about why an American mayor would be on such a trip and how he felt about eight Bulgarian nurses recently being released from a Libyan jail. "It was something totally unexpected," he said. (The Houghton Lake Resorter, Houghton Lake, Michigan) Looking for a different kind of experience involving travel, history and even cultural changes? You might try what I just recently experience with an archeological dig in Bulgaria. Just recently retired, I wanted to put travel, and my interest in history and archeology into a trip, particularly overseas. I had found that the American Institute of Archeology has a website (http://www.archaeological.org) that list all of the programs all over the world. You can participate as a student, or as I did, as a volunteer. I had originally applied to participate in a dig in Posen, Poland on a medieval cemetery, but had applied too late for acceptance. The next interesting program to me was one in Bulgaria on a Roman fortification. I applied and was accepted for a two-week program beginning in mid-July. The cost, excluding air fare was $1,075 euro or about $1,400.00, which included room and board. I found a travel agent who booked the airfare for $1,200.00 so the trip was about $2,600.00. My cost was a little more as I did some additional travel once the program finished. The dig site was located in Mezdra, Bulgaria, about 100 km northeast of Sofia, Bulgaria's capital. I flew into Sofia a couple of days before the program started, but the director of the program, Dr. Krassimira Luka, had arranged for their staff to meet my plane and get me from the airport to the hotel where the program would start from on Sunday. This gave me a couple of days to walk around Sofia and see some of the sights that were not going to be on the tour on Sunday. Bulgaria is at the crossroads to Europe and Asia. The Greeks and Romans had to traverse Bulgaria to conquer the Middle East and the Turks passed through there on their way to conquer Europe in the Middle Ages. You may have noted in June that another Thracian tomb was opened in Bulgaria where they found gold funeral masks and other items that hadn't been taken by early grave robbers. One of our tour trips was to one of the museums that had some of those Thracian treasures. It always amazes me the intricate work that artisans could do over 2,000 years ago. On Sunday, after touring some sights, including some of the oldest churches in Bulgaria, we boarded a bus for our trip to Mezdra. It only took about an hour and a half to get there and the bus dropped us at our hotel, which was on the outskirts of the City. Mezdra sits along a major route running from the northern Danube area south toward Turkey. The Iskar River crosses the roadway and makes a suitable place for the early 1st and 2nd Century Romans to establish a fortification. Our hotel was about ? mile from the hilltop outcropping upon which the Romans built their fort. We were very fortunate that the hotel was only about a year old and with only 10 rooms, would be our home for two weeks. We started the program on Monday by taking a ride to a site just northwest of Vastra, about 30 km from Mezdra. It was the site of another Roman fortification that guarded a narrow pass between two mountains. The site being excavated was about 300 feet above the roadbed and up a 60-degree incline. I was thankful that this wasn't our site to excavate, as I, and my college participants were exhausted from the climb. While we were there, one of the Bulgarian staff found a silver button with a medal detector in the excavation. A great sign that this was going to be a good trip. After touring a nearby museum that held some of the artifacts found on prior excavations, we headed to the site we would be working. Surprisingly enough, the site was located just on the outskirts of Mezdra, and overlooking the town. It was high upon a bluff overlooking the river and, from the number of walls outlining the occupied area, used for a number of years. The Bulgarian Archeological Association that was running the dig had worked there for three summers prior and had found a number of pottery shards and Roman coins to date the occupation of the site. My colleagues, Catherine Seed from England, and Jeb Hagan from Dallas, Texas were anxious to get started. Bright and early Tuesday morning we were given our putty knives, blue trowel and paint brush and became archeological students. We were given the task of taking a 10 cm layer from in front of a wall excavation. The Roman wall fortification was actually about 8 feet above our heads, and we were informed that the layer we were working on was from the Neolithic period, or up to 30,000 years ago. While using a trowel and putty knife to scrap away at about 2,5 inches of hard packed dirt doesn't sound exciting, just wait until you uncover one of the three most found objects, rock, pottery or bone. Not that rock can't be exciting; it was the pottery shards and bone fragments that made our day. At this site, I did find a flint knife that our instructors became excited as it was the first found at the site, and showed that the site traded with other areas, as the flint was not native to the site. This is where I caused a little stir in Bulgaria. When the local Mezdra television station came to do a spot on the find, they found out that I was a Mayor from America and wanted to do a live interview on their station. I agreed and would up fielding questions, not only on why I was there, but also my views on such things as the Bulgarian nurses just being released after 8 years in a Libyan jail. One question asked whether I was going to meet with the Mezdra Mayor, and sure enough, I spent two hours talking with him about how he handled his job as Mayor. Unfortunately for my colleagues, they had to sit there and listen to us chat. The next day, Bulgarian National television came and did a 5-minute spot. More press in Bulgaria than I have ever gotten at home. Our second site was on top of the hill, overlooking the river. Again, the Roman layer had already been gone through and we were finding pottery and bone from the Neolithic period. The process was interesting as once we took a 10 cm layer off, recovering the artifacts from that section, we had to chart any rocks we found, both horizontally and vertically, before we could move on to the next layer. The shards from each layer were washed, marked and coded with the date, section, site and depth of find. Most are not reassembled into pottery as the instructor indicated that you rarely find a whole vessel or pieces. The number of shards was used to determine how active the site was at that level. We worked at the site from 8 am to about 11:30 and then at what we came to call the Bone Building from 5:00-7:00 p.m. where we washed, marked and cataloged the day's finds. Did I say that all of this was during the hottest heat wave to hit Bulgaria in 100 years? We had almost a week of the temperature being between 40-45 degrees Centigrade or 113 degrees. I learned how to drink water. Fortunately, this hotel we were staying at also had a pool, so from noon to 4:30, it was in the pool. On the 113-degree day, I counted over 125 people around the pool.

Other participants:   BAA field school hold in strict confidence the personal information. If you wish to contact with some of our ex-participants please send us a message here containing his/her name. BAA administrator will transmit a "request contact" form to him/her.   Andreas Lund Mosjoen, Norway Between education   Anna Luella Isbell Saint Louis, Missouri, USA Highschool Student   Anne Patterson Ontario, Canada University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada   Bob Stefanowski Centennial Colorado, USA Retired   Catherine Seed Esh Village, Durham, England     Chloe Victoria Hillyard Eversholt, Bedfordshire, England University of Nottingham   Chris Louis New Orleans Louisiana, USA University of Mississippi   Chris Winger Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, USA     Erica Noddings-Zinola Chula Vista , California, USA High school sophomore   Francesca Monteith Perthshire, Scotland, United Kingdom     Gabriella Rose Wass Teddington, Middlesex, United Kingdom Lady Eleanor Holles School   Hanne Thora Ostertun Larsen Mosjoen, Norway NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) in Trondheim, Norway   Jane Sanford Washington, DC, USA University of Pittsburgh   Jeb Hagan Denton, Texas, USA University of North Texas   Jennifer Laura Raines Boulder, Colorado, USA     Jessica Kempen Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA University of Minnesota   Josephine Gardiner Oxford, England Wadham College, Oxford   Lauren Zinola Chula Vista, California, USA Engineering teacher   Megan Jarvie   Wadham College, Oxford   Pamela K. Wood Richmond, Virginia, USA     Ryan Eric Kochevar Berkeley, California, USA UC Berkeley   Stacey Brorup East Chatham, New York, USA SUNY University at Albany   Sylvia Ma Tampa, Florida, USA University of South Florida   Thomas L. Winarski W. Grout St. Gladwin, Michigan, USA

Our weekend consisted of a trip to the Ledinika Cave (a cool 50 degrees), and to Belgradocik, where another Roman fortress was located. It was located in some spectacular countryside, with tremendous rock formations, only about 20 km from the Serbian border. We had a little worry as we drove through an area where a couple of grass and forest fires were burning. The cave we visited at Malpas was tremendous, over 1500 meters long and contained a number of cave paintings from the Neolithic period as well. Believe me, I didn't complain about the 50-degree temperature in the cave.

We were assigned an interpreter for our whole trip, so I did pester him with a wide range of questions. I learned a lot about their culture, their politics, their economy, and their history. Our Bulgarian interpreter seemed to indicate that Bulgaria was first in a lot of things, and we had an hour and half discussion over the Slavic language. I must warn you that it seemed that all Bulgarian's smoke like fiends. That may change in January, as a steep tax increase will hit cigarettes and alcohol as Bulgarian changes to a European Union country.

It was an enjoyable experience, even given the heat wave, made possible by the program set up by the Bulgarian Archeological Association. The trip met all my expectations and more, and to me, was made enjoyable by the learning experience I had. So if you're looking for something different and have an interest in history, you might find being an amateur archeologist to your liking.

Thomas l. Winarski

Zdra'vej! Well I am here in Bulgaria. I really like Sofia. It is a very beautiful city with an interesting mix of architecture and lots of parks and natural beauty as well. After the tour we got on the train to Mezdra, where the excavations are located. The train ride went through a river gorge and it was fun to get a glipse of the countryside. Getting off the train Peter asked to make sure it was the right stop and the man ahead of us shook his head - meaning "yes"- that's going to take some getting used to. The hotel in Mezdra is very nice, and various circumstances have resulted in me being moved to one of their suites. I have a double bed, a sitting room with a couch and TV and two balconies!

So I went to the excavation site this morning. Stopped at the petrol station for coffee on the way and managed to pay and say "one coffee please" all in passable Bulgarian. At the site I am working on cleaning off a profile right now so I began that and was joined by two girls (part of the local high school crew working there too). They both spoke English well and were eager to practice so we talked at lot and they helped me practice my Bulgarian a bit too. After working at the excavation all morning (8-12, though probably about half of that was coffee and cigarette breaks- everyone here smokes constantly!) I went back to the hotel for lunch and went swimming in their large and very nice pool. It was very refreshing and the young son of the hotel owners (who also likes practing his English) even lent me his goggles which was very sweet. Then at 4 I walked into the town (the hotel is just outside of it) and up to the lab where we clean pottery, etc. and where I am receiving archaeological drawing lessons.

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Today I had my first time digging in one of the excavation pits. It was so fun and interesting! After the first hour or so my impression was not so positive- somehow squatting in the dirt for the next three hours did not sound like the most fun I'd ever have, but then we uncovered a large broken ceramic vessel and I spent the rest of the morning painstakingly scraping away the dirt from around the pieces. We also keep uncovering pieces of bone and pieces of many smaller pots. We're beneath the Roman level right now, so George thinks that we are looking at a Neolithic hearth. It's pretty mind blowing knowing that I'm touching the same pices of pottery that someone cooked with thousands of years ago. I really enjoyed the hands-on nature of the digging experience, which is part of why I expected to (and do) enjoy archaeology. George also explained the grid plan of the site to me and showed me a little bit about how surveying the site is done, which was also interesting. This afternoon I'm off to the lab to help wash, sort, and lable pottery sherds. Yet another things that sounds mind numbingly boring but I find actually quite fun. While I was washing pieces yesterday I found one with some painted designs on it which was really neat.

I have to say I have been pleasantly surprised by the food for the most part. In generally there is more meat (sometimes of unidentifiable origin, but I try not to think about it too hard) than I'm used too but most of the dished I have tried have been quite tasty. I am particularly found of a few of the Bulgarian traditional dishes. The "national soup" is a cold yogurt soup with grated cucumbers and garlic that is quite good and refreshing. Also "shopska salad," which is made from pieces of cucumber, tomato, and pepper and covered with their traditional white cheese (kind of like feta), is very good. Last night we had some sort of stew- the name escapes me at the moment- which was very good. It had chicken cooked with peppers, onions, and corn in a sort of gravy with parsley. Their coffee is also wonderful- sort of like a combination of Italian espresso and Turkish coffee- half a cup will keep you going all day.

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Wow, it has been a busy weekend! On Friday, instead of going to lab for drawing lessons or to clean and sort pottery, George and Peter took me to Vratsa. It's a beautiful small city right up against the mountains, with a traffic-free outdoor mall (reminded me a lot of Pearl st.) and a very interesting archaeology museum. George is actually one of the directors of the museum, so instead of having one of the usual trite tours, he showed me around himself, which was really cool. Especially interesting to see was a small silver box used to hold someone's ashes that was found at the site I am working on, and their extensive collection of Thracian treasure (gold and silver plates with very intricate designs and inlays). The next day, we took in the morning for Belogradchik to first visit Magura cave. Magura is the biggest cave in Bulgaria and also houses some very early cave paintings. You could tell we were not in lawsuit-happy america anymore as we shuffled up staircases and paths slick with mud and dimly illuminated with christmas lights. The cave was interesting and delightfully cool, even cold inside, but afterward we visited the Roman fortress at Belogradchik, which I found the most interesting. Built as the second line of defense on the Danube frontier, this huge fortress has massive reinforced walls that surround a front courtyard that leads up to a steep set of stairs that lead to the entrance to the fortress itself. The fortress is set on the top of a hill and contained by a beautiful wind-worn natural red rock formation (think canyonlands + Romans). I fell asleep on the ride home (about 2 hrs) from such an exhausting, but very interesting day. I feel like I am becoming saturated in so many new sites and pieces of information.

The following day, yesterday, we visited another cave in the morning. This one, Ledenika, was high in the mountains above Vratsa. We drove through the pass created by two giant stone outcroppings that due to the winding approach of the road appear to open and close to admit you. Vratsa means gate and was named for this phenomenon. The we climbed into the lush mountains up harrowing hairpin turns. Horses graze on the steep alpine pastures and a shepherd with a long wooden crook guides his sheep across the road.

After that, we visited two monestaries in the Iskar River gorge. Both were very beautiful and quaint. Half-timbered buildings with flower gardens and winding paths and very old churches. I especially enjoyed going into the churches which were both 12th century and had some of the original frescos. The style is quite different from the churches in Italy I am accustomed to. These tend to be small with relatively low ceilings and intricately carved wooden iconostatis and massive but dim chandeliers giving a bit of illumination. They feel extremely old and peaceful to stand inside.

Jennifer Raines

After arriving in Sofia, my interpreter and driver dropped me off at a hotel and I had a day and a half to explore the capital city. Today, I will have a guided tour and then we will take a train to Belogradchik and I will join the dig.

The architecture here is an eclectic mix of modern European, Austro-Hungarian, Italian and Byzantine. Bulgaria was aligned with Germany during WW I and II and that is evident in their buildings. The former palace (now a museum) of the royal family is quite beautiful as are many of the churches.

Sofia is a totally modern city; everyone is on cell phones and they have a lot of high end retainl (Escada, Lacoste) which was a bit of a surprise to me. But the streets are paved with yellow cobblestones, indicative of the Austro-Hungarian empire (apparently a trademark).

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Today I spent the morning excavating a collapsed roof on the floor of our villa. The "find of the day" was a ceiling tile with paw prints from a fox. Apparently, foxes would enter the workshops at night in search of food and one obviously stepped on the tile while it was still wet. The ceiling which they say was poorly made collapsed above the sterile layer of plaster on the floor. We will move onto the threshold next in hopes of finding something important as they say that's where the good stuff is. I spent the afternoon washing Roman pottery shards from the site which were vast in style, material and purpose.

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It has been a challenging week. I continue to dig in N6 (my hole) in which I am looking for the sterile layer of plaster, to no avail. I found 2 small pottery shards yesterday whcich did not excite anyone. We used a metal detector over the dirt I had piled up and I scooped up a small pile. The detector beeped furiously and we thought we had a coin or something else fantastic. Alas, it was detecting only my ring under my glove!!

After a lot of rain and cold weather, I finally made a great find! This morning, I discovered a weaving weight which was the first find of its kind at this site. The archaeologists tell me that this indicates that there was a workshop at this site which they did not know. They were positively ecstatic.

I have spent my afternoons learning how to draw and use a field book which is all very interesting.

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Yesterday brought a rest from digging and a trip to some local sites. I set out with the archaeologist, the head of the Bulgarian Archaeological Association and my interpreter. We headed to Vidin where we visited the local museum. It was a hodge podge of artifacts, including prehistoric pottery all the way up through 20th century medical instruments.

We then continued on to the Baba Vidin fortress which dates to the 10th century. Some of the rooms were a bit like being in a haunted house, especially the torture chamber, complete with executioner and skeleton! This fortress is located strategically along the banks of the Danube, just across from Romania. Seeing the river like this, I can understand why it was a big deal that Caesar crossed the Rhine as he did! The fortress was well-built and remains in excellent condition. Compared to the Belogradchik fortress which is atop a mountain, I can see how military strategy was critical in the ancient world. As they say, it's all about location, location, location!

The final stop of our day was at Ratziaria (not sure of spelling in English). It is a 4km x 4km site which was the capital of the Roman province. A group of locals questioned us and became a bit nervous when we said that we were archaeologists. Apparently, poaching is literally the livelihood of these people. They were worried that we would remove something valuable from the site. We got out and walked around the necropolis which was full of pottery and graves that were at the surface. Some parts of the site have been dug up by the poachers who obviously found them with metal detectors. I was handed a bag and told to pick up mass materials which we could study to date the site. I collected some brims and bottoms of pots.

The find of the day was a pot bottom which I found that resembles the bottom of a soda can. It is burned which means it was probably used to heat something. The reason this is such a significant find is because of the stamp on the bottom which tells us it was imported from northern Italy and was made in the 1st century AD/CE. They tell me this is a very important find!

Daniella Garran