Most people packed up and left the remote North Macedonian village of Babino years ago, but Stevo Stepanovski and his remarkable collection of 20,000 books stayed put in his almost abandoned valley.
The library began with Stepanovski’s great-grandfather who was given his first tranche of books by passing Ottoman soldiers in the late 19th century.
Along with history books and novels in the Macedonian language, there are tomes in Farsi, Arabic and Turkish along with a whole host of books in Serbo-Croat, the main language of the old Yugoslavia of which the village was once a part.
Photo: AFP
The library is home to original photographs by a journalist who covered World War I, antique maps and a Babel of dictionaries covering the region’s many languages.
“This is a village of enlightenment and education,” said Stepanovski, 72, who regularly welcomes guests with cups of coffee and shots of homemade fruit brandy in the centuries-old stone home where the library is housed.
The library helped make the villagers highly literate, with an inordinately large number of them becoming teachers.
Photo: AFP
“There was no house without a teacher,” Stepanovski said.
However, their learning was also the village’s undoing. In the 1950s, the Yugoslav government called up the valley’s teachers for a nationwide literacy drive — effectively robbing the area of much of its population. Like much of this impoverished corner of southeastern Europe, North Macedonia has been clobbered by a demographic slump.
The triple whammy of an aging population, sinking birthrate and mass migration has left many villages across its rural hinterland abandoned. Babino has been hit particularly hard. Once it had more than 800 inhabitants, but now there are just three permanent residents.
While Stepanovski’s adult children have moved elsewhere, he is determined to stay on with his books in Babino. Instead the world comes to him, with 3,000 to 3,500 people a year visiting the library.
Most come from nearby towns and villages or from neighboring countries, but there are also occasional travelers from Brazil, Egypt and Morocco along with a host of literary academics and researchers.
“I am surprised titles can be found here that cannot be found in city libraries,” said Goce Sekuloski, a music professor at a seminary in the capital, Skopje, who visited Babino after hearing about it from friends.
Stepanovski has also built a small amphitheater for public readings and concerts.
“We offer a peaceful mindset for people to come and sit here and experience the atmosphere,” he said. “If you want to discover the magic of books ... you can do that perfectly here.”
The Philippine Department of Justice yesterday labeled Vice President Sara Duterte the “mastermind” of a plot to assassinate the nation’s president, giving her five days to respond to a subpoena. Duterte is being asked to explain herself in the wake of a blistering weekend press conference where she said she had instructed that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr be killed should an alleged plot to kill her succeed. “The government is taking action to protect our duly elected president,” Philippine Undersecretary of Justice Jesse Andres said at yesterday’s press briefing. “The premeditated plot to assassinate the president as declared by the self-confessed mastermind
Texas’ education board on Friday voted to allow Bible-infused teachings in elementary schools, joining other Republican-led US states that pushed this year to give religion a larger presence in public classrooms. The curriculum adopted by the Texas State Board of Education, which is controlled by elected Republicans, is optional for schools to adopt, but they would receive additional funding if they do so. The materials could appear in classrooms as early as next school year. Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott has voiced support for the lesson plans, which were provided by the state’s education agency that oversees the more than
Ireland, the UK and France faced travel chaos on Saturday and one person died as a winter storm battered northwest Europe with strong winds, heavy rain, snow and ice. Hampshire Police in southern England said a man died after a tree fell onto a car on a major road near Winchester early in the day. Police in West Yorkshire said they were probing whether a second death from a traffic incident was linked to the storm. It is understood the road was not icy at the time of the incident. Storm Bert left at least 60,000 properties in Ireland without power, and closed
CONSPIRACIES: Kano suspended polio immunization in 2003 and 2004 following claims that polio vaccine was laced with substances that could render girls infertile Zuwaira Muhammad sat beside her emaciated 10-month-old twins on a clinic bed in northern Nigeria, caring for them as they battled malnutrition and malaria. She would have her babies vaccinated if they regain their strength, but for many in Kano — a hotbed of anti-vaccine sentiment — the choice is not an obvious one. The infants have been admitted to the 75-bed clinic in the Unguwa Uku neighbourhood, one of only two in the city of 4.5 million run by French aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Kano has the highest malaria burden in Nigeria, but the city has long
RSS