In about a month, he will turn 85. He has been battling cancer for 47 years. And he never stops dreaming. That is likely what helps life triumph for Grandpa Stefcho.
“Keep going straight, cross the bridge, and you will reach a pole with a stork’s nest.” This is the landmark he gives us for his house in the village of Mlada Gvardia. This year, the stork family—or percussion duo “The Red Beaks”, as he calls them—has three chicks. They moved in here in 2009. There is no way he can forget it. That was when he started a mini-park on municipal land in Mlada Gvardia. He shapes a live hedge facing the nearby river with 64 decorative thujas. He sows a lawn seed mixture. He plants two walnut trees and two Turkish hazels. “I wished for them,” Grandpa Stefcho smiles today. And so a small dream, spoken aloud, has been coming true every spring for 17 years now.
The well-known veterinarian, scientist, and author of several books, Stefan Marinov, invites us into his home to share an even bigger dream with the confidence that it will become a reality. He has named it the “Alley of Gratitude”. And it is a natural continuation of that “live” hedge of 64 thujas, after which the stork family arrived. In his yard, he has grown planting stock—100 cypress saplings that he plans to use to build the alley. “I want to find a home for these hundred plants and be sure that they will live. I love them very much.” “And while I’m still alive, I want to see them thriving.”
Why cypresses specifically?
Back in ancient Greece, medical centers were built specifically within cypress groves. These are places with an exceptionally healthy climate. It is believed that the phytoncides of cypresses are among the most effective for air purification.
And Grandpa Stefcho’s cypresses are also Mediterranean. He got the planting material from Stara Zagora, where the hospital yard has such plantings. He wants to arrange them in the shape of the Orion constellation. Because it is connected to Thracian history. “Our ancestors will orient themselves from above and come visit us,” winks the old man with a youthful spirit.
Why is he doing all this?
Stefan Marinov was diagnosed with cancer in 1979. Now he is battling a second one as well. During a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he vowed that if he survives, he will renovate the Marin Fountain in the village of Lopushna, Dalgopol Municipality, where his lineage originates. In 2016, he did it. “As my condition improved further, I vowed to renovate the church in Mlada Gvardia.” Thus, he renovated the iconostasis. And he also initiated the Alley of Gratitude. He is publishing a booklet to win followers for the idea. “There are none. I don’t know how to popularize the idea, how to engage people,” Grandpa Stefcho shrugs. With a little sadness, he looks at his village, which has turned into a “weekend retreat village.” “I want to create some kind of livelihood here,” the elderly man muses. With this idea in mind, and also out of nostalgia, he bought the building of the village’s old school some time ago, which closed down in 1998. “I studied there, my mother graduated there, my wife started working there, and then my daughter too…” He is changing the building’s status to a hospice. For now, none of his children and grandchildren embrace the idea, but Grandpa Stefcho does not give up. He has announced an intra-family competition and promises to financially support its implementation.
The Alley of Gratitude
…begins right at the school. In the future cypress grove, 5 ash trees, 4 plane trees, and one walnut tree are currently growing. Here is also the largest tree in Mlada Gvardia—a white willow with a trunk circumference of 4.62 cm. “I’ve remembered it since I was a child. It was in the yard of Grandpa Todor Popov. He had a pond shaped like the Black Sea and raised fish in it.”
“There are 5 fountains here. I want all of this to come alive,” the eyes of the 85-year-old man sparkle.
He realizes that “mere elderly enthusiasm gets you nowhere.” That is why he has enlisted neighbors to help him plant the cypresses and a couple of others to lend a hand with the cutting and clearing. But he is still looking for equipment—a machine to clear the site of overgrown vegetation and carry out the project.
He has also planned the subsequent care. “I will run water from a drainage shaft that leads to the ravine and connects to our pump. We will make four lines for watering.” “They need to be watered for two summers, otherwise nothing will take,” the man reasons. And he adds with a smile: “I want to see how they grow when I come back in 100 years.”
Grandpa Stefcho is a benefactor. And to be one, you must have realized how fortunate you are to have the blessing—to be alive, even more so, healthy, to have a loved one, to have someone to share a dream with… And then you give without expecting to receive. And then, as Stefan Marinov writes, “the emotional charge of this endeavor touches strings that sound clearer and clearer with age…”
If you have the desire and opportunity to support Stefan Marinov’s idea with financial resources, volunteer labor, equipment, or simply a kind word, write to info@ecovarna.info. We will make sure that your support and message reach him.
