Scintilena - English Version

The idea about the initiating of the First Assembly of the cavers from the Balkan peninsula appeared in the autumn of 2006. and it belongs to the Vice-Chairman of the Bulgarian Federation of Speleology (BFS) and General Secretary of the Balkan Speleological Union (BSU) – Alexey Zhalov. The Bulgarian Federation of Speleology undertook its organizing, encouraged by the readiness of the Tourist Society “Rhododpeya” – Yagodina and the speleo clubs “Silivryak” – Trigrad and “Studenetz” – Chepelare to offer their help in the organizing and carrying out of the Assembly. The wish of the Regional administration of Smolyan district and the mayors of the municipalities Devin, Borino, Chepelare and Smolyan for active participation in the event, gave the organizers even bigger strength.

            In January 2007 was made the first announce of the Assembly to the cavers’ communities from all Balkan countries. At the same time, with separate letters were invited the Chairmen of the national speleological organizations in the region. After that were released 4 additional circular letters to the Balkan cavers, where were stated the aim, the tasks, the program, conditions and requirements for participation. The organizers and the members of the Balkan Speleological Union are puzzled by the lack of answer to our invitation of the colleagues from Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. Maybe it is under their dignity to be reckoned as a part of the Balkans!?

Representatives from Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Greece applied for participation in the Assembly. The Balkan Cavers’ Camp took place in the village of Teshel, Smolyan district, from 27 June to 1 July 2007. On 27 June in hut Teshel arrived the representatives of all foreign guests, except these from Serbia. In the end, the Balkan Cavers’ Camp in Teshel gathered the following representatives:

Albania – Prof. Gezim Uruchi – Chairman of the Albanian Speleological Association;

Bulgaria – Dr. Petar Beron – Chairman of the Balkan Speleological Union and the Bulgarian Federation of Speleology, as well as 118 cavers from 18 speleoclubs in Bulgaria;

Greece – Nikos Mitsakis – Chairman of the Greek Federation of Speleology and Fanis Ellinas – Vice-Chairman of the Greek Speleological Association and 20 others Greek cavers;

Macedonia – Josip Zmajzek – Chairman of the Macedonian Federation of Speleology and 7 other Macedonian cavers;

Romania – Prof. Tuberiu Tulucan – Chairman of the Committee for expeditions and research of the Romanian Federation of Speleology and 11 other Romanian cavers;

Turkey – Ali Yamac – Secretary General of the Union of the Turkish Speleologists and 24 other Turkish cavers.

In total – 187 cavers participated in the First Balkan Cavers’ Camp.

The next three days were dedicated to visits in the tourist caves Yagidinska, near vill. Yagodina and the sink hole cave Dyavolskoto Garlo near the vill. Trigrad. The program offered also penetrations in the non-tourist part of 8.5 km long Yagodina cave, Haramiiska dupka, Sanchova Dupka and Eminova dupka. Some participants had the chance to penetrate by dinghy in the water cave, from were flow out the waters of the Dyavolskoto Garlo cave. Part of the Bulgarian cavers visited others caves, which were not included in the preliminary program.

The official opening of the Camp took place on 28 June at evening time. The opening was honoured by representatives of Smolyan administration and municipality Chepelare and personally by the mayor and vice-mayor of municipality Devin – Yulian Semchev and Ivan Angelov. The event was opened by Alexey Zhalov and the official guests welcomed the participants on behalf of the relative institutions.

During the evening hours on 28 and 29 June were submitted presentations of the foreign and Bulgarian cavers on the following topics:

 

1. A Short History of Turkish Speleology and the Cavers Union – Turkey;
2. Explorations of SC Ëxtrem”- Sofia” of the Bosnek Karst region in Bulgaria;
3. “The Underwater Research in Greece” – Greece;
4. SC “Helicit”- Sofia – Acitivity and Trends for Development;
5. Reseraches of the Speleo club in Krayova, Romania;
6. 2 short films – Club BUMAK, Istanbul - Turkey;
7. The Miracle Bridges in the Rhodopes, Bulgaria;
8. The Cave “Orlova Chuka” – Bulgaria;
9. Speleo Reseraches and Discoveries in the Trigrad Karst Region, made by MOERPA, Bulgaria;
10. A History of the Cooperation between the Bulgarian and Albanian Speleologists – Albania;
11. 3 Short Films - ANUMAB, Ankara, Turkey;
12. Explorations of Macedonian Speleologists – Macedonia;
13. Cave Rescue - Romania.

The mos popular were the evening camp fires, which created wonderful atmosphere of friendship, discussions of ideas for cooperation among the Balkan cavers. These fires were nice scenery for drinking of different local drinks and singing of many songs from different part of the Balkans. 

According to the program, on 29 June many participants visited the Museum of Speleology and Rhodopian Karst in Chepelare and the Architectural reserve Shiroka Laka.

During the camp were also organized stands of the shop “Stenata” and products of local traditional crafts.

Official events

The last day – 30 June, in hotel ”Silivryak”, vill. Trigrad took place the General Assembly of the Balkan Speleological Union with participation of the leaders of member speleological organizations. Mr. Tiberio Tulucan from Romania participated as an observer.

The members of the Assembly listened and accepted the Report of the Activity of the Union for 5-years’ period since it was established, as well as the Financial Report for this period. The Agenda continued with election of new executive body of the Union, due to the expiration of the mandate of the pervious one, which members were: Chairman – Petar Beron (Bulgaria), Vice-Chairman - K. Zoupis (Greece), General Secretary – Alexey Zhalov (Bulgaria) and members – Ivan Zhezhovski (Macedonia) and Jaka Jakovchich (Slovenia). After the discussions with full majority was elected a

 

New Bureau of the Balkan Speleological Union, as follows:

 

Petar Beron (Bulgaria) - President;

N. Mitsakis, Greece -  Vice- President;

Alexey Zhalov (Bulgaria) – Secretary General ;

Miss Meltem Pancrachi (Turkey) – Member;

Oliver Gitchevski (Macedonia) – Member.

 

After that, began the discussions of the project of Protocol for Cooperation among the federations of the Balkan countries. In the process of discussions, the representatives of the two Greek organizations – the Greek Federation of Speleology and the Greek Speleological Association, argued about that which organization can represent all Greek speleologists. The colleagues from the Greek federation appealed to the Assembly to end this quarrel by changing the Statute of the Union. After lively discussions and voting was accepted a change of Article 7 of the Statute of the BSU. The new article 7 states: “Вalkan countries – members of BSU is represented by one delegate. In case that there is more than one national speleological organization (federation or association) in the country, the national delegate is elected among them according mutually accepted rules”. In addition, the matter of discussion is solved also by Art.10 of the current Statute: “The General Assembly is composed by delegates (one each member per country).

The signing of the Protocol for cooperation raised new quarrels between the Greek colleagues. In the end, with the help of other delegates, the passions were moderated and the Protocol was signed by all participants. The choice of a host for the next Assembly of the cavers from the Balkan Peninsula provoked new emotions. The Bureau of BSU received two separate offers from the two Greek organizations. The first one was made by the Greek Federation of Speleology. The Greek Speleological Association offered co-organization, but it was refused by the initiator of the first offer. The choice of the next host was in stalemate. Finally the delegates were united with the decision to give time to the Greek colleagues till 11^th November 2007 to make an agreement and to declare their decision. If they arrive at agreement, the Second Balkan Cavers’ Camp will take place near the town of Siderkastro, North Greece, if not – the host for the Camp will be the Union of Turkish speleologists! With this decision ended the General Assembly of BSU. It is necessary to stress, that one of the main aims of BSU and its organs is “to support the institutions of each country member of BSU in matters concerning karst, caves and Speleology”, but not to solve directly internal problems among the speleological structures of the separate member-countries. In this context, we would like to recommend to the Greek colleagues to sit around the table of negotiations and to point their efforts to unite under flag of their country, because it is an old and well-known true, that “the unification makes the power”. In this case not only the Greek, but the Balkan speleology in general would be far more strong and effective!

           The evening of 30 June the First Balkan Cavers’ Camp was closed officially. The event was visited by Mr. Ivan Angelov – vice-mayor of Devin. The participants were welcomed by the Chairman of BFS and BSU – Dr. Petar Beron, who closed the event. A local folklore cast from Devin presented a short concert and many of the participants in the Camp played the horo dance. The official part ended with a small cocktail party, given by the mayor of Devin municipality, and the unofficial part continued near the camp fire till late night hours. The first day of July marked the final of this successful event and put the beginning of departure of participants. We hope that the meeting managed to fulfill its main aim – to create conditions for mutual familiarizing of the participants and establishing of deep friendly contacts among the cavers from the Balkan countries.

The successful organization and carrying out of the Camp is a result of the several months’ efforts of the whole cavers’ community in Bulgaria. The most active and wedded were A. Zhalov, G. Raichev, K. Hadjiiski, S. Genchev, M. Stamenova, K. Bonev, Z. Petrov, Tr. Daaliev, G. Staichev, G.  Vlaikov, A. Baldjiev and many other cavers. Special tanks we owe to the mayors of the municipalities Devin, Borino, Chepelare and Smolyan for their comprehensive help. Last, but not the least, we are very thankful to the sponsors – the shop for mountaineering and caving equipment “Stenata”, Mnieral water “Devin”, Kirov AD, “Orion-ski”, which contributed to the realizing of the event!

 

Reported by Alexey Zhalov – Secretary General of BSU.

Translation in English: Magdalena Stamenova

 

Some photos and little clip from the event you can find at:

http://www.club-caving.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OFFICIAL ADRESS OF BALKAN SPELEOLOGICAL UNION

 

Alexey Zhalov – Secretary General and Treasurer , 75, Vasil Levski Blvd., 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria

++ 359 2 987 88 12, ++ 359 2 9300 650, е- mail: alex@speleo-bg.com; alex.1953@abv.bg; http://www.balkan- speleo.org

 

Contact addresses of BSU Bureau  

 

Petar Beron  - President: beron@mail.bg

N. Mitsakis – Vice President: nikos.mitsakis@yahoo.gr

Alexey Zhalov – alex@speleo-bg.com;

Meltem Pancrachi -meltempan@hotmail.com

Oliver Gitchevski - ursusspeleos@mail.net.mk;

Questo articolo è stato pubblicato Lunedì, 16 Luglio 2007 alle 18:47 e classificato in Senza Categoria. Puoi seguire i commenti a questo articolo tramite il feed RSS 2.0. Puoi inviare un commento, o fare un trackback dal tuo sito.