The majestic places stand out on every guidebook and map, and often attract large numbers of people. I have no intention of stripping them of their charm, only to smile at them amicably and take a closer look at the less famous ones. The latter often retain an intact originality and a shyness of magnetic charm. It is like entering the house of a local and being shown his kitchen, where he leaves his shoes, books in an unknown language, how he makes coffee. One such place is Abramová. It is a group of houses in north-west Slovakia, two lines along a country road. All around is undulating land that jumps up to the mountains everywhere you look. It is more downhill than uphill, and to the south it slowly descends to the plains, but here the air is still high, and high on a hill is the church of sv. Kozmu in Damiána (St Cosmas and St Damian), dating back to the late 1200s. It is a soothing sight for the eyes, as the road follows the curves of the landscape to the iron gate on the fence, and leads even closer to the church.
There is a cemetery there, bizarrely located on the slopes of the hill that rise at the foot of the church. Graves are scattered all over the place, in clusters here and there, like huddles of people. They have wrought-iron tombstones, stylised into rays of hands reaching for the sky. The sky is vast around there, but it is partly hidden by a majestic oak tree that casts a shadow over a defiladed section of the cemetery, in the shade behind the church.
The graves here are ancient, many are profaned. There is also a chapel, in the corner, which has also been profaned. The slabs that once stood intact to close the underground niches are broken through, and there is rubbish inside. It is a sinister sight. Why have those graves been violated? The chapel has shattered glass, the door is closed but inside you can see an old altar and rubble. A fence surrounds it, but it is choked with grass and torn down in many places. The two underground tombs in front of the entrance are open and empty, but inside you can still see the niches where the coffins used to be. Where are we? In the distance are the wooded outlines of the Mala Fatra, green and overgrown with trees, and a few Soviet-looking buildings, mixed in with the logs and rocks emerging from the woods. It was quiet that day. The village of Abramová was a few hundred metres away, but had it been even closer little would have changed: it was almost deserted and made no noise. Only every now and then did a lorry loaded with logs turn a distant bend and pass on its way up north, towards Martin and Žilina. There was something strange about the cemetery and the church of sv. Kozmu in Damiána.
We moved outside the church, away from the crypt, away from the cemetery. I had studied the place enough to decide what to make a photograph of it, where to place the tripod and the view camera. We parked on the avenue leading down and up to the church, not too far from the village, and in a spot where the curves made my eyes dance. I was focusing, straining my vision on the sanded glass of the camera, when suddenly a voice and its echoes were heard coming from behind us, from the village. Like a bolt of lightning I hurriedly pulled out the sound recorder and placed it on the roof of the car. Loudspeakers had been turned on. You can find the recording just below. A voice listed things we could not understand, a truck loaded with logs passed by again, a dog howled in the distance between the yards. Suddenly the voice stopped, there was a moment of silence, and shortly afterwards a song with folk tones began. The situation had taken on a surreal tone. All around were nothing but green hills, the church with its cemetery, the houses of Abramová, with their shacks at the back and remnants of half-finished works. Metallic music echoed for a few minutes between the houses, and there seemed to be no one listening to it but us. We only realised later that an elderly man had come out of the house and leaned against the fence to listen. A trill that was impossible to ignore signalled that the broadcast was over.
(Quella qui sotto è la registrazione degli altoparlanti sovietici ancora in funzione, mettete le cuffie e prendetevi 5 minuti, ne vale la pena!)
Many villages in Slovakia are still equipped with loudspeaker systems of Soviet origin. They are mounted on wooden telephone poles, or on street lamps, and in some places they are still in operation. Their purpose has changed over the decades. Initially they served as an alarm, activating it in the event of an attack on the Soviet Union to alert the population was essential. Then they were used to regulate working hours and shifts in factories and various activities in towns. Today, they are used for service announcements by municipalities, to report changes to the opening hours of ecological stations, and to broadcast a good dose of popular music. End of communication.
PS: i luoghi maestosi, protagonisti di guide e mappe, difficilmente sono liberi di fare questi regali. È dal cassetto delle posate che capiamo una casa, non dal portico.
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