Danube-Networkers
Interview with Dora Kostadinova
Text: Albena Mitikova / Dora Kostadinova
The working group of EMC consists of representatives of three organizations: Chitaliste "Izgrev-29", village Opanetz, district Pleven, Chitaliste "G.S.Rakovsky", Sofia and Home for elderly "Zona-B5", Sofia. The representatives of Home for elderly "Zona-B5", Sofia, have prepared an interview for the project with Mrs. Dora Konstantinova - Age 82 , who was born and spent her childhood in the small town Oryahovo on the river Danube.
Interview
A.M.: Hi, Dora, how are you?
D.K.: Thank you, so-so...
A.M.: We know, you are living in Sofia very long time. But where were you born?
D.K.: Yes, you are right, the last 45 years I was living in Sofia but my home place is the small town Oryahovo, at the riverside of Danube.
A.M.: Do you have some memories which connect you with the river? What do you mean, do the river connect the people living at the both sites of it?
D.K.: Of course! My family lived in the small town Oryahovo on the coast of the river Danube. We lived in the old house of my grand mother on the mother's side. The years of our childhood on the river coast were cheerful and motley. I will never forget the holidays, the nice decorated steamboats and the lights in the warm summer evenings, the famous brass band of the talented Bulgarian musician Diko Iliev, when all people in the town had a good time together. The happiest people were we - the children -, of course. I keep in my mind not only the holidays in the summer. During the winter, when the river was covered with ice, all we could go trough the river and reach the town Beket on the Romanian site of Danube. We all did it because all of us had relatives in Romania. The ice was something like a bridge over Danube, connecting the coasts and the relationships between the people.
A.M.: Could you tell us some short story?
D.K.: Yes, I have a very nice memory. This memory of mine is left from the time when I was 10 or 11 years old. The case, which I remember very well, happened on the steamboat "Iskar". During my childhood there were three steamboats, ferrying people from the small towns and villages on the Danube coast - "Iskar", "Osam" and "Vit" (names of three Bulgarian rivers running into the Danube). My father Georgy Doitchinov was working during this time in the village Gorni Vadin and one day we both were on the steamboat "Iskar". Suddenly a young woman began to cry and got pains of childbirth. She was a pregnant Romanian. At the beginning the travelers and the crew have been stressed and confused - what shall they do now?! But when they understood that the young women will get a child, all who knew what is needed in such cases, tried to help. The captain of the steamboat kept cool and helped too. In a half an hour came into the world a small beautiful boy.
All people on the board were very happy with the excellent surprise and the captain became a godfather of the child. The mother was very thankful for the warm care and the support and the child got the name of the steamboat - Iskar.
So, if we think, we will understand that the river connects the people living on the river coast not only as a bridge but as an "umbilicus cord."
Resume
Title: To be born at the steamboat
Autor: Дора Константинова (Dora Konstantinova)
My name is Dora Konstantinova. I am 82 years old and live in the Home for elderly "Zona B-5" Sofia. I am born in Oryahovo, a small town on the Danube riverside. My happiest years were the years of my childhood and my youth. I have many nice memories and one of them is about a birth of a Romanian child on Bulgarian steamboat.
