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Anastasia Balezdrova

Her publisher Igor Markovski said about her, "Vida Pironkova makes rings, necklaces, earrings and bracelets, and puts a pebble from Ancient Greece in each of them, because the stones there keep memories.  It is not only that, but there are notes in those memories. Put one of her necklaces on the threshold of the door or on the terrace and you will hear the waves of the Aegean Sea lapping at your feet."

In her book Vida’s Rosary, she wrote, "Someone finds somebody somewhere at the end of his universe and plays on an ancient lira the songs of Solomon." Vida Pironkova is a poet, a musician, an artist, a jeweller. At the same time, she has very clear positions on all issues affecting modern society today. Vida talked about art, the lack of intellectual famine and other cultural and prosaic topics with Anastasia Balezdrova.

Vida’s rosary

I have always wanted to write. Words are very important to me, to life in general. I am a big fan of Nathalie Sarraute, who wrote many essays dedicated to words and I am more or less influenced by her. I also write about words, their use, their dual and triple meaning, about the intonation when pronouncing them.

Since I started using Facebook I felt very distinctly that you have no contact with the man when something is in written form. And the fact that there are no accents in the Bulgarian language does not help us. It is very difficult to understand the true meaning of the written words. It may happen so that people interpret what was written in a different way, which may result in fatal errors and misunderstandings in relations between people.

Moreover, I learned many languages in order to be able to intonationally understand a larger number of people or the messages sent through songs. I speak six languages precisely for that reason. It is just communication is very important to me.

At one point, I found the courage to start writing down my thoughts. Otherwise, I have been writing poetry since I was 15 years old. I think, and history has proved it, that either very young or highly spiritual people write poetry. In the beginning, I started writing as a young person. Poetry is pure and immaculate at that time and it tells of the young man's first clashes with life, society and mostly of love, which is the only meaning of our lives, be it divine, interpersonal or some other.

Then I started writing down my thoughts. My book, which will be published soon and will be presented in Sofia in October, contains verses from the last years. It also contains the lyrics of several songs that I wrote in Bulgaria some years ago. They are highly spiritual and I included them in the book on purpose. It also contains short stories and thoughts, for which I would use the common definition of "texts", i.e. a string of words.

Because they are just like a string, and I even have a few texts about words, Igor Markovski suggested that we should entitle the book Vida’s Rosary. The layout is entirely dependent on the idea of ​​the rosary, I even wrote a story about it. It is fantastic and contains historical data about rosary. The book will be full of surprises: a separator in this form and many other things. The colours are white and black, and there is a colour accent that I will not tell. I prepared 33 texts and 33 poems because the real antique rosary had 66 balls.

The official presentation of the book will take place in Studio 5 in the National Palace of Culture, at 18:18h on 18 October. I chose this place alone, because many artists gather there and hold readings, jazz evenings, concerts, piano concerts and other events. As we needed a hall with a piano, I suggested that the presentation should take place in a luxury hotel. But I'm an artist and I wanted to gather many friends and acquaintances who really care about me and would love to touch to my recent works. There will be many surprises, which I do not know either. I will play the grand piano - 2-3 new songs and 2-3 old ones. One of the songs will be my personal gift for Igor. It's called "Kiss my dream". He was working at Voice of America radio station in the 1990s and he played some of my songs on the radio during an interview. He fell in love with that particular song and took it to Washington. Whitney Houston’s ballads were very popular at that time. So, they liked my song and started playing it on the radio there for a year. Therefore, I will surprise Igor precisely with it.

Designer Ani Balgaranova made the layout of the book and the publishing company is Ciela. I hope readers will like it and I am thrilled a little but I hope everything will be fine. From now on, I will be working on two novels that I have already started, but I can say that writing takes a lot of time.

Vida and arts

I am dealing mainly with music. When I came to Greece, the only two things that I took were the baby sling with my baby in the one arm and the synthesizer, which is a professional and big one, under my right arm. I never part with it. It is my biggest helper and soother in moments of despair.

Greek publishing company Cambia is about to release a music album of mine soon. Nobody in Bulgaria showed interest in releasing my music except for the album Caravan, which, however, was withdrawn because of a conflict of interest. I myself funded all the other songs and all the music that I released even when the performers were very popular at the time. I do not want to mention their names.

I would define my music as very interesting. I'm an innovator in many ways. My songs are not just songs and they are different from others at least in form. Likewise, my compositions are closer to classical music and are different in form as well. I.e. what comes out of my hands and my head is not subject to existing forms. I use them, but I always try to run away from the restrictions. Music is mathematics basically. But even the idea of ​​a marked structure makes me nervous. At the beginning, I could not help but broke the scheme. Now, I am doing it on purpose. I do not like square and triangular shapes. I am a fan of the circle and the sphere. Great future is waiting for me in music but it is not my strongest period at present. I learned to bide my times.

Basically, the accumulation of knowledge, the lifestyle, the influence of social and family environment make the things happen for me. I was born in a family and social environment, which in the past century, even during a different social system, was leading a bohemian life, only among very prominent spiritual persons in Bulgaria. Then the world began to open for them. So, I got this whole basket of gifts with which I am gifted at a very early age. This is something I realized lately. I spent many years scattering the things I was given.

Then, there is education they gave me. I still cannot find a person with such a solid education in the field of arts. Later, life sent me to another school - in Rome. I not only feel the best there but five years were not enough to take the culture and what was amassed for centuries there. I had the chance of being among of cultural figures - representatives of various arts and I sucked in information and knowledge.

Then I came to Athens. I studied Greek the first year, which seemed difficult at the beginning. But I graduated with honours and got a diploma from the School of Modern Greek at the University of Thessaloniki.

Vida and jewels

I found a warm, quiet and peaceful place here, where nobody knows me, nor do they want to know me. Then, a teacher organized a jewellery course in the suburb where I live. I was making jewels of baked dough like a schoolgirl. At first, I painted them with my father’s watercolours but then I decided that oil paints would be more suitable. In general, forms have always interested me. I participated in exhibitions with small wooden coloured sculptures and stones. Later, I made sculptures too. Everything that involves the brain and the hands attracts me a lot.

So, when I started the course, I knew what I was going to do and I needed materials: silver and stones. I knew how to work with metal and during the third lesson, I suggested to my friend, the jeweller, to become his apprenticeship for a fee. He laughed at me but I told him that the models were in my head, that I would not draw them because someone could steal them and that I had to learn working with the tools. He agreed and I became his apprenticeship just like that. Vassilis taught me very quickly. I bought tools and now I have a room in his studio, where I make unique designs. I do not draw them. They are in my head and I see them as sculptures. I choose beautiful stones and silver. I started selling them to friends. I do not advertise them and in fact, the women or their husbands, who have seen my works somewhere, come and find me alone. Furthermore, my jewels are charged with a lot of positive energy according to the women who wear and do not take off my jewels. I sign my jewels with my name and the very meaning of the word "Vida" on an object means life.

I do not make a leaving on it but I'm not cheap either, because the jewels are works of art.

The other thing that took me to jewellery was my acquaintance with Umberto Mastroianni - the greatest Italian sculptor - futurist and founder of this movement. He gave me two pairs of earrings and a ring. I have only the ring now and it is very precious to me. Even then, in the period between 1995 and 2000, I told myself that I would do such things one day.

Vida and fine art

I started the story about the jewels with the family and education in order to show that everything is connected. I used to draw in the past and some of my paintings are still in Rome. Some of them are kitsch and I know it. Others relate to my divination. Things that I see happen in the years afterwards. One of my paintings, which is in a large gallery in Rome today, depicts the twin towers in New York destroyed. They were still there at that time but I had painted them in red and orange, in flames. The gallery keeper was surprised and asked why. I replied simply that I had seen them this way. After the big crash, he called me and was more than amazed. By the way, I had many other indications of that date but the picture remains as a document, even if it has no values as a work of art. It is interesting as an idea and vision, and its message has already become true.
 
Vida and visions

I cannot say it is divination. I dream of many things, the jewels and the songs tone by tone. There was a unique oboe solo in my song "Come," when I took part in the only edition of "Golden Orpheus" in which I participated and received some awards. It was a unique rococo-baroque solo. I played it on the piano but I could not hear the instrument to perform it. At the same time, the deadline in which I had to present the notes for orchestration was close. One night, I just heard a voice in my head telling me "oboe, oboe." I woke up frantically and realized that this instrument would play the solo. Quite by accident, I met a young musician - oboist the next day. The song was wonderful as late Vili Kazasyan and the orchestra confirmed. When I write good things, they go out straight from my hands. I did not even think about them. I just know that I need a pen or a piano. If I do not have any of them, I just record the idea with ​​an old tape-recorder so as not to forget it.

I read tarot cards and more. I read ordinary cards for Mrs. Anna - Maria Tatoi and described the case in a story.

The parallel between the way of living in Greece and Bulgaria

There is no difference. The only thing I miss is the community in which I was in Bulgaria in the past. It is not there any longer. Very slowly, I began forming a very small circle, because the Greek music society does not allow new people easily. I withdrew from music a bit and decided that I will reach my goal through other channels. It is just clear that this will take a long time.

The other thing, which I started learning and I did not have before is to be patient. Greeks are too calm, I would rather say lazy. I am not annoyed lately but it made me nervous before that. The truth is that the climate is very important for this phenomenon. We are alike as nations, but we are different too. Greeks are by no means bad people. I do not mean insulting the Bulgarians, but we are a bit more hypocritical and more insidious. We seem to be just trying to do them down and history has proved that it cannot happen. And because we cannot do that, only bad things have been said about Greece and Greeks recently and especially in relation with the crisis. This is unworthy of my people, because I have not heard a single bad word about Bulgaria and Bulgarians from a Greek. These are my personal observations. Bulgarians want someone to help them, to appreciate them. The moment they see the back of a person, however, they start tainting and vilifying, which is a typical Bulgarian feature, and it is ineradicable.

Greece, the crisis and the euro

Greece should exit the euro. And I even think that not only Greece will exit it. I have nothing against the European Union basically but it is not of use for our small countries. It will not harm Greece if it returned to the drachma. It is just the opposite. It will thus regain its positions, wealth, dignity, production. Greece is a very rich country, which now looks like a strong caged beast. It only needs a mouse to bite the cord and open the cage. I do not know who will play the role of the mouse.

The crisis is global; it is not limited to Europe and Greece. First, it is a spiritual crisis and the natural effect was for it to grow into an economic crisis. Europe does not dictate that, however. The crisis will continue and will have other dimensions.

Chalga

In my opinion, chalga is dying away. I would visually define it as a festering appendage, which you cut or it withers with time just like appendicitis. When you ignore it, it does not sore and you live with it. The chalga is clearing the spiritual dirt not only of the 22 years of transition but of times long before that period like the appendage, which clears the body of the dirt. The spiritual destruction of Bulgarians began as early as the five centuries of Ottoman rule. But even they were unable to defeat the powerful spirit of the people. After this period, there were some years of recovery, but a new decline started then, which lasted until the Bulgarians were completely suppressed. They became ideal for the development of something else, when they were no longer interested in anything else except in eating, sleeping, easing the nature. For many years, we were living in a "dead zone." And then, the lowest passions of Bulgarians shot up. This is part of the history of music too. The primitive man discovered the labour tool and he began slaughtering animals to eat, putting skin on to cover himself but it was not enough. He started playing or singing to ease himself of the physical energy after seeing that other animals were doing it. This is how the first reproduction of sounds of nature began. Primitive rhythms are what affect people a lot - African, Indian, Gypsy and Arabic, in which the very rhythm has an impact on the first chakra of the human being. This is the sexual energy. This rhythm is used in many genres of music from different countries - Asian, African music, in the gypsy belly dancing, in the Greek tsifteteli and others. Lower social strata use this music to free from the energy and it immediately triggers the energy in the first chakra. This grows into sexual desire, propagation, continuation of the family, etc. It's in the chalga.

So, after the Ottoman rule in Bulgaria, there was a calm period, which was the time of folk music. It involved sounds of Orpheus, cosmic sounds that have nothing to do with the Anatolian rhythms. Then we had the old urban music and the socialist music was next. We were not the only country where the music had to be composed in a certain form.

While in Greece, the genius Mikis Theodorakis, whom I respect, made the music to be accepted by the people, precisely because he is a genius. It is an ancient music and there is a light Asian element in the rhythm. Then, he added the communist text. He made a nice product in this way, imposing it for many years. The other genre is Asian tsifteteli and popular music. Greeks are nationalists, they listen to their music and this is not by chance. Theodorakis and Manos Louizos were commissioned to compose it in order to isolate all foreign influences and to keep it in history as the Greek music. When you listen to Zorba the Greek, you immediately make an association with the Acropolis, Greece, and the sea.

This is not the case with Bulgarians. They used the Russian school of marching music and did nothing then. The only exception is Pancho Vladigerov, but he is a cosmic composer and a German graduate. He used folk motifs to indicate his nationality. Otherwise, he is a world composer and has no analogue in Bulgaria. So, there was nothing for the table and we returned to the primitive rhythms. But the good thing is that this period is over. It will take several years to clear it completely.

But intellectual famine does not affect just Bulgaria. You cannot gratify only the needs of your body. People started realizing that they are intellectually famine. And they started rousing themselves in order to provide this type of food.

Social networks

This is our present and future - the way in which you can communicate with anyone in seconds, without restrictions of time and space. For me, social networking is a very big discovery. I'm a big fan of Mark Zuckerberg, who has actually made my dream come true - to communicate quickly with thousands of people.

I have been a Facebook user for four years now. Twitter is not interested to me for the time being. I have some friends, who just follow what I do and other active friends with whom I communicate on daily basis. Facebook helped me. I opened myself somehow. I found my field of expression for my jewels, music and writing. I post my staff, get ratings and criticism and it is not necessary to publish something on paper or on other material. In practice, it is like looking at yourself in a mirror. Sometimes I even share my moods there. At first, I took things to heart but then I looked in the eyes of others and realized that every user is there to have fun and to share what they would not share with anyone live.