Carpathian Sheep Walk

Sunday, 18 December 2011

Tim Salmon, author of Dhiava, The Green Meridian (about a walk he did through the centre of France) and many other fascinating books, has put me right about the Vlachs which John Campbell studied for his DPhil. They were not Vlachs but Sarakatsani, who speak 'a very archaic Greek dialect', whereas the Vlachs' language is (of course) related to Romanian.

No comments:

Rounded hills at the northern end of the Cindrel Massif

Two years' worth of drought and centuries of grazing have given the landscape its smooth contours. In the distance, the fast-growing Gypsy quarter of the village stands out on the ridge tops. The Baiesi, the non-Roma Gypsies who live there make up a third of the total population of 6,000. Some fear that the district may become even larger, but most of those in the older quarters like to live and let live, and there are other positive sides to the situation, one of which is that many of the Baiesi are musicians. In any case, they are like all of us in that they only want a place in the sun. Still, there are tensions between the two 'sides', not least because Baiesi are building on land that is not legally theirs.

Gathering sheep on the Preseli Hills

Sheep from this farm are grazed on the hills during the summer and taken to winter pastures by lorry. Their journey to and from the winter grazing only lasts an hour or so. Lambs which are sold for meat travel across Europe while they are still alive. EU legislation limits the number of hours that animals should be kept on the road, and stipulates how often they should be watered and rested. These rules are not always observed. When it comes to horses, some 60,000 a year travel for several days from Poland and Romania to southern Italy, sometimes with injuries and often without rest or water. These figures have been collected by World Horse Welfare which has conducted undercover research to see what really happens. Ironically the economic downturn has made this trade less profitable, but it still happens.

Carpathian Sheep Walk

Translate

Sunday, 18 December 2011

No comments:

Post a Comment