Welcome to my impressions of

Melodije

ISTRE I KVARNERA

FESTIVAL S DUŠOM - A FESTIVAL WITH SOUL

In 10 towns of Istria & Quarner, June 18 - June 30, 2008

Gračišće: Perfection in Hospitality

"Mala općina za vele fešte" did it again! The smallest and newest MIK host town won the vote of MIK team in competition for best organization (along with Mali Lošinj) for the 2nd year in a row. The attendance in Gračišće was five times the population of the town. The effort and imagination that went into making MIK participants feel welcome, appreciated, and comfortable were unforgettable, and (with all due respect to other towns), refreshing. Their guests were clearly refreshed in the true sense of the word also, and despite the extreme Summer heat. Gračišće is too small to have its own folklor groups or wind orchestra, so they brought them from Tinjan and Pazin. The happy Feštari from Trsat were also on hand to cheer thing up even more.

The road through Gračišće was closed for all non-MIK traffic

Balun on main road by guests from Tinjan

Trsački feštari

Caravan heads for the town

Balun dancers from Tinjan

Approaching the town gate

Mayor Mijandrušić greets the participants and invites them into the town

MIK participants enter first

Inside, a wonderful display of old fashioned hospitality

Kroštule or fritule? Few of each and you can't go wrong!

Guys from Klapa Maslina: This is worth showing in Šibenik

Some late arrivals... Missed balun & fritule...

...but made it for some refreshments at Konoba Marino

Lead by their general... or admiral, or something...

...Trsački feštari take positions around the bar... and the singing continued

...while the pros head for rehearsal

All big fešte end with fireworks. MIK was no exception

THE FLIP SIDE

While waiting for the beginning of the concert, young Maja Veljak came to the audience where her mother was sitting, and asked for the camera. "There is some breathtaking view from the other end of town (100m away) on the hills and valley below. I need to take some pictures", she said. Little did the young lady from Rijeka know that the view that made her run for the camera might soon be gone forever, destroyed along with clean air, water, agriculture and the life the way it has been for thousand of years. The new, economically unexplainable, politically suspicious, environmentally disastrous, stone wool factory, is sitting in the center of that valley waiting to resume test production that caused rather extreme pollution and health problems before it was shut down at the end of 2007. To add insult to injury, our otherwise wonderful organizers in Gračišće accepted sponsorship for MIK concert from Rockwool and allowed its representative to hand some apparently invented for the occasion award during the intermission. But that's another subject. Let's not pollute the happy and festive MIK atmosphere here as they polluted our air, land, water and - democratic process.