“Like Robinson Crusoe, we start from the beginning. Our first step will be to build a composting toilet and solar bath. In the beginning we will present the different building technologies, and in the end we will test the product of our common labor.”
*The headline and text are part of our first report back in 2010 about… a place where we have been escaping “away from the concrete city” every summer for 15 years now. For a few days…
It is located in one of the wildest places on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. There is a beach, a protected area, lakes, silence… And every summer we describe it. To tell those who have not been with us what they have missed… Freedom in its original form and… the pleasant tickle of grass under your feet.
Yes, you guessed it! We are in the countryside. 8 km north of Shabla. The left turn off the international road to Romania leads to the village of Ezerets. On the street. 17th behind a fence of stones and a wooden hedge are tents. Every year in the last week of August and the first week of September, the Public Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development brings young people here, away from the concrete city.
The Beginning
The idea for the caravan parks was born in 2000 during one of the visits to England of Ilian Iliev from the Public Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development. There he became acquainted with the work of an organisation that does similar training. He decided that this was an interesting and sustainable method of training for young people in our country.
“I went through a long period of research and searching for a place. Finally I found this 600 sq. m. yard in the village of. Ezerets”, says Iliev. When he first saw the area, he likened it to paradise. “The asphalt road only reached from the main road junction to the centre of the village. There were only two houses on the street where the eco-camp is now. I’m still in love with that time,” admits Ilian.
“We call it “camp” conditionally, there is no exact word yet invented to convey the emotion and feeling of the experience. It’s a bit like surfing, but it’s only a few kilometres from the big city. It’s like a school in nature, but with teachers – the students themselves. Some people take it as a break, but they have to work.”
This is how we describe in 2013 “an anticipated vacation, away from the concrete city.”
The Eco-camp in Ezerets was conceived as something to preserve and demonstrate the traditional look of the place. Here everything happens with local materials. Because its organisers believe that sustainable development should be based on the resources of the local area. That’s why it’s mainly built with straw, which is abundant in Dobrudja. They use stones and clay from the local clay deposit, and less timber.
In the beginning, efforts were also made to make the locals accept the newcomers. This task was taken on by a French woman who arrived in Bulgaria 18 years ago as a volunteer at the Public Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development.
“It was important for the local community to recognise the camps as something of their own. So we organised meetings in the community centre, visited the church, the old houses, contacted a local architect, the mayor. During the eco-camps we built benches, windows to keep the beach cleaner. We made a knitting workshop with plastic bags,” says Helene Sabatini, who permanently settled in the village of Shabla.
Why we do it
The goal is to get people out of the concrete city, out of the apartments, to come for a while in nature, to walk barefoot on the grass… This is how simple the idea of the eco-camps in Ezerets sounds. But the real value is that here young people learn to do things that they would hardly master in the city. Most of all, to work with their hands, with natural materials, to pitch tents, to build with clay and straw, to eat healthy and to appreciate the connection with nature.
The whole concept of building the place and the practices that happen here is related to the demonstration of how we should develop the territory we live on, says Ilian Iliev.
“We are saddened that most yards have replaced normal village grass with ryegrass. That to me is a killer because the area is generally arid. The water here is extracted from 30 metres deep. Watering ryegrass every day and mowing it is neither environmentally nor economically viable,” says Ilian.
Campers
The people who come to the eco-centre usually don’t know each other, but when they leave they have the feeling that they have been close all their lives.
Veronika Drumeva accidentally came across information about the ecolodges on social networks. “I was very busy. Veronika came with her two teenage children. “For myself, I knew I would love it. The surprise was more for the kids. The moment they came, they said how much they liked it. They hardly used their phones. They take part in everything and I can see they find it fun and interesting,” the woman is pleased.
Maxim Nedkov came for the first time, together with his 5-year-old son. “I really like the connection, the reminder of our closeness to nature. And communicating with each other – when you are in a nicer place, you find it more enjoyable to strike up conversations. We see it in the children’s behaviour. In our everyday life they fuss, but here we talk, they play,” he looks at his son Maxim.
Where to now?
After 15 years, more than 35 camp shifts and over 300 participants, along with the changed appearance of the village, its organizers ask themselves – is it time for something new?
“Our development plans are very simple. They are as they were originally. Different camps are being organised with different missions – to learn to plaster with clay, straw and natural materials, to build a structure with natural materials, to make decorations from natural materials, etc.”, says Ilian Iliev.
According to Ellen Sabatini, the eco-camp should evolve, offering one step better conditions so that it is not only held in summer. This would be possible with the construction of a thatched building or kitchen.
“The eco-camp has the role of making us turn to nature so that the development of the village remains on a scale acceptable to the environment and to the inhabitants themselves. It helps economic development, but also protects the interest and quality of life of the local people,” says Helen.
Almost every summer, the participants in the eco-camps make a map of the area, draw or create stories about how they imagine the territory in 50 years.
Deer Sabatini collects and keeps their dreams. “People want to visit the lake and the dunes and protect them. To develop places where people gather and create community. To have horseback riding, walks to the sea, an educational farm in nature for the children. Cars to be concentrated in one place, outside the village. They want something more rural, more real and they want to feel the human intervention as support for that”.
According to Arch. Maxim Nedkov, it is important that the area does not become too populated. Everything else is right. And all places allocated for urbanization, for tourism, for wild camping, should be regulated. The specialist sees the right mix for development in high quality alternative tourism combined with agriculture and small-scale production.
“I would be happy if the local municipality would stop dreaming of having big hotels, big resorts, and develop camping, caravans – the type of alternative tourism that is missing,” Ilian Iliev also believes.
If you’ve never fallen asleep under the stars… And been woken by a bird alarm… If you’ve never stirred a barefoot clay plaster… And taken a sun shower… If you’ve never eaten bread baked in a rim-in-the-ground oven… You’ve probably never been to #EcampLake. And you don’t know how delicious life can be. How simple and colorful at the same time. And how expensive…
Maybe at least once in your life it’s nice to try…
From the reports about “Eco-camps Ezerets”:
2023:
The hardest reportage in life is about what we miss while doing what we should.
The second shift of Ezerets 2023 EcoCamps began on the last day of August. With unusual alarm. An entire chorus of birds performed the most extraordinary serenade on Earth. (In the fall, the birds sang when they couldn’t find a mate.) Their song captivated and soothed. Because it reminds us that things happen when they’re supposed to.”
(„Ezerec 2023 – everything you missed“)
2022:
and for the first time several things happened at the 13th Ezerets Eco-camps. And none of them proved fatal.
For the first time:
The weather was so cold, stormy and rainy; (But the spirit did not fall. Even some of them had fun.)…”
(“For the 13th time, the Lake Ecolagri – nothing fatal!”)
2021:
“Is there anyone coming down?”. The hoarse male voice brings me back to reality. I look around. We are in the middle of nowhere, there are only fields around.
The small intercity bus has pulled over to the side of the main road. “Where are we?” a man asks timidly from the back seat. “Lake,” the driver grunts. I jump like a scalded man. I nearly knock the bus to a stop.
(“Where there are snowboard benches, a refrigerator bookcase and a window to the heart…”)
2021:
There is hardly a person who has not dreamed of a place where the crickets lull him to sleep and the birds wake him up. To be far away from the concrete city, but with a sense of meaningful social contact and satisfaction from what has been done. Perhaps this is the secret of the success of the “Ezerets Eco-camps”, which have been going on for 12 consecutive summers.
(“On mosquitoes, fried toast and the common ground between Shrewsbury and Ezerets”, from the book “#AzPrawaEcoVarna”)
2020:
“If you’ve never fallen asleep under the stars… If you’ve never felt the dust with your feet… If you’ve never eaten under a thatched roof… If you’ve never sunbathed… If you’ve never been to #LakeCamp.
Unlike The Farm, which you watch on the screen from the sofa, here you can get a real taste of life – simple but not ordinary, delicious but also fusty from time to time, peaceful and always ready to surprise you.
(“#EcoCampsLake – Season 10”)
2019:
When you get over the stress of making the leap from the “orderly” big city to the “chaos” of small Lake Eureka, you’ll understand the true value of time. Your dreams grow here, but you’re in no hurry to reach them. Because there is a time and a place for everything. As for the 25 travelers at heart that gathered this year’s “Ekoplener Ezerets”.
(“A rim oven, a clay bath, a compost toilet and more…”)
2013:
No Facebook here, but there are friends…
There is no McDonald’s, but there is the aroma of bread freshly baked in an earth oven…
There are almost no beachgoers here, but there is a vast clean beach …
There is no boiler here. But there is sun and sunbathing …
There are no cars here, but there is a dusty road with corn growing around it …
There is no rubbish here. Because for nature there is none. And even the toilet here is compost…
(“An expected vacation away from the concrete city”)
2012:
Dwelling away from civilization, in a tent with electricity from a solar panel and water from a primitive sink – a bidon, there is no telling. It has to be experienced. To knead bread kneeling on the grass, to cook a casserole in an underground oven, to drink tea from a freshly plucked mint or to reach for the apple tree…
(“Away from the concrete city“)
Photos: Georgi Krastev, Svilena Velcheva
