Bulgarians Hope Che Guevara and Brigitte Bardot Can Save Their Village


“It’s a natural pairing,” Stefana Gospodinova, a 64-year-old resident of Staro Zhelezare, a remote Bulgarian village, said of herself and Brigitte Bardot, the French femme fatale. “I am mistaken for her all the time.”

The two may not exactly look alike, but they do share a love for animals. Hence the depiction of Ms. Gospodinova and her mule alongside Ms. Bardot and her horse in a photo-realistic mural painted on a whitewashed wall.

Staro Zhelezare, population 400, is like so many other Eastern European hamlets withering in the face of low birth rates and the exodus of young adults to more prosperous points west. Except for the murals, which two Polish artists, Ventzislav and Katarzyna Piriankov, began painting a few years ago in hopes of starting a revival.

The idea, Mr. Piriankov said, “was to use the village as our canvas and to transform it into a work of art.” A rotating group of students are in Staro Zhelezare this week for the second summer in a row building what the artists call their  “Village of Personalities.” This summer, they plan to add murals of Gandhi, Lincoln and Cleopatra.

Photo

“I’d much rather meet Che than any living king or queen,” said Yordan Arabadzhiev, whose portrait shares a wall with one of Che Guevara. CreditDmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times

Already, there is Che Guevara, depicted with Yordan Arabadzhiev, 68, who sees himself as having a similar revolutionary spirit flowing through his veins because his family members were partisans resisting the Nazis in World War II. “I’d much rather meet Che than any living king or queen,” Mr. Arabadzhiev said.

Yanko Mitev, who spends his days wandering the village, on the other hand, did not recognize the faces painted beside him. They are Patriarch Kirill of the  Russian Orthodox Church; Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum of Dubai; Boris III, the former czar of  Bulgaria; and a generic Orthodox Jew in a black hat and side curls.

His companions are good, Mr. Mitev said later, because he dreams of a world where “people live in peace and get along.”

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Yanko Mitev did not recognize the faces flanking his own portrait, center, but approved of them because he dreams of a world where “people live in peace and get along.” CreditDmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times

Correction: July 7, 2016 

An earlier version of this article misstated the name of the Bulgarian village. It is Staro Zhelezare, not Stare Zhelzare. The error was repeated in a capsule summary and a picture caption.

 


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Източник: nytimes



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