My mother’s family – Mr and Mrs Pramatarovi

My mother comes from an interesting family, whose distant background is unknown and its recent history is also shrouded in mystery. About fifteen years ago, my mother handed me a hard-back notebook, in which she said she had described as much as she knew details of the lives of our family.  For many years, I found no time to look at her writing.

Recently, however, I had received the results of my DNA test and this inspired me to open the notebook and fuelled me with desire to commit these stories to writing, for the use of my children and grandchildren. In the process, I hope to be able to consult with cousins, who could help to fill in the gaps, to confirm connections and to sort out some names and inaccuracies in the text.

So, the first story you will read, will be my grandmother’s on my mother’s side.

The Pramatarovi Family

The parents of my grandmother Anna – the Pramatarovi family were migrants from Greece – from the area of Thessalonica. Here, we encounter the first puzzle – there were many migrants from Greece into newly liberated Bulgaria.  They were mainly people of Bulgarian origin, who wanted to return to their homeland after the country’s liberation from Ottoman occupation and conflicts over what is now Greek Thrace and Macedonia. They also wanted to escape being given Greek names and the purges of the Greek governments of the time.

My great grandparents were obviously Greek, as they did not speak a word of Bulgarian when they settled in Pomorie! So why did they migrate?

At the time – the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, Pomorie was called Anhialo. The known reasons they settled there were several.  First, they would have adapted to life in Anhialo much easier, as the town has had Greek population since ancient times. Secondly, they had relatives, living there and a close member of the family lived in the region.

They must have arrived with some money, which was evidenced by the fact that they purchased a large, two-storey house in the centre of town.  The ground floor consisted of a draper’s shop, in which my great-grand father sold cloth, material and other industrially woven products and the family lived in the flat on the first floor.

We do not know what the Greek surname of the family was, but I suspect it may have had something to do with their trade. Many people all over the world have names, related to their own trade or the trade of one of their predecessors: Smith would have and a smith in the family, Butcher would have been a butcher, Ovcharov/Shepherd would have been a shepherd, Gardener/Gradinarov would have had a gardener in his clan, etc.  So, in settling in Bulgaria, my ancestors adopted a surname, indicative of the trade of the family – they have borrowed the Bulgarian word, meaning a cloth/material trader – pramatar.

The town, in which my ancestors settled, however, soon became a dramatic stage of ethnic conflict.

The only newspaper at the time, published by the Bulgarian minority in Pomorie – Kray, gave facts and data about the events, which were to unfold.  It was the only newspaper in the town from 1904 till 1911.

During its long history, Anhialo/Pomorie went through many fluctuations of its population. Towards the end of the town’s existence in the frame of the Ottoman Empire, Anhialo was amongst the towns with a largest number of Christian (manly Greek) population in the European part of the Empire. Then, the Greek population migrated towards Russia and the Mediterranean, and later towards the Danube Principalities.  At the end of the 19th century, Anhialo was the largest city in the area, but it lost this position after the 1850/60, when industry developed in Burgas, the building of the port was completed and the city greatly increased in size.

With time, due to the migration of large number of Greek families in the town, the ethnic conflict between them and the resident Bulgarians increased.

During April – May 1905, there were ethnic conflicts, which prompted the events, which took place a year later. After the Monastery “St. George” was occupied, the ethnic conflicts were being fought out in the open.

The inferno, which took place in Anhialo in 1906, was not a casual incident.  It was the culmination of endless arguments and accusations between the Greek and the Bulgarian communities, during the Balkan Wars, but most of all, about which side should be responsible for the churches, the monastery and the school properties in Pomorie.

It all boiled up to what has been describes as a pogrom, aimed at the Greeks in the town. The large fire, which engulfed Anhialo on the 30th of July 1906, was the culmination of the anti-Greek movement at the beginning of the 20th century in the town and in the country.  Moreover, each side blamed the other for the tragedy.

Anhialo_03[1]

An aerial photograph of Anhialo during the 20 years of the 20th century,

showing the damage, caused by the fire in 1906.

From the Pomorie Council’s archives 

The fire, which took place on the 30th of July 1906 and the following few days was described in two contradictory versions by both communities – the Bulgarians and the Greeks. However, statistics give the most correct version of events.

According to data, supplied by the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church at the time, the Greeks had lost more people in the fracas: 9 Greeks were openly murdered, 70 children, women and elderly people were burned alive or died from falling debris.  In comparison, 32 Bulgarians died.

According to the data, supplied by the Government, the destruction was enormous – the fire engulfed a large number of buildings, equipment and movable property.  All government buildings and the school were lost.  Besides them, the list of burnt buildings included in its entirety 948 buildings: comprising of 707 Greek houses, 132 shops; 15 Bulgarian houses and 7 shops and 11 Turkish houses. Considering that in 1905 there were 1044 buildings in total in the town of Anhialo, this means that 91% of the buildings in the town were destroyed – 77% of the buildings, belonging to Greeks and 52% of the existing Bulgarian-owned buildings.

∞

The sad events from July 1906 started a massive exodus from the city. My great grandparents also left Pomorie with their children – my grandmother was 13 years old at the time, but are unwilling to stray too far away. With a cartful of luggage, they took the road to Bulgarovo (now a town), where my great grandfather George’s sister Katina was married.

Bulgarovo (old name Urumenikoy) is situated inland and west of Burgas, slightly closer to it. During the Ottoman occupation, it was entirely populated by Greeks. However, during the Liberation War, most of them were killed by marauding bands of Bashibozouks and Circassians.

Later after the Balkan Wars (1912-13), Bulgarovo was populated by migrants from Southern-Eastern Trace – mainly of Bulgarian origins. We do not know, whether great aunt Katina lived in Bulgarovo prior to the Liberation of Bulgaria, or she had migrated there later. It is also possible, that she married a migrant.

The Pramatarovi children knew their aunt Katina well.  My mother still remembers with delight the smell of the fresh goats’ milk, which she drank in her house as a child, during their visits to Katina’s house.

Considering the fact that my great-grandfather managed to adapt comparatively easily in the new environment, my mother supposes that he had managed to save most of his valuables during the night of the fire. It is also possible, that he had some money saved in a bank, which he later withdrew. After a short period, he purchased 1,000 sheep and hired a shepherd to tend them. After some time, the family bought another two story house – the ground floor contained of a shop and the floor above was the family‘s living accommodation. The shop sold “manufactured” cloth, materials, lace, towels, sheets, curtains and other draper’s products.

Time flew – the Balkan wars brought the country to its knees and many young men died on the front.  Illnesses spread in the country – dysentery appeared in Eastern Bulgaria. Great Grandfather George Pramatarov caught it and died from it.

∞

The family lore does not tell us how long after that the eldest son of the family – Demeter died.  My mother has no idea what caused his death, but the family took this second loss quite badly.  She has seen his pictures, on which he looks tall and slim, a blond young man, with large green eyes and small blond moustaches. She says that great-grandfather George was a very tall, fair-haired man with blue/green eyes and this gene was passed to several of his children and grandchildren – including my uncle George – who was given the name of both his grandfathers. Demeter was married, with a family, but my mother offers little information about him, in comparison with her other uncle – Yani.

∞

Yani was not only a handsome man with classical features, but also extremely charming.  This is how my mother describes him: Extremely elegant, he simply embellished the clothes he was wearing.  With somewhat curly blond hair and large green eyes, his beautifully shaped mouth was always smiling. He was adored by women. Exceptionally intelligent, he had an almost painful sense of humour.  His jokes and stories were always saturated with self-irony.

Like his father, Yani became a draper – he had a shop selling cloth in Burgas, which traded very well. According to my mother, women were gathering around him like wasps on honey.

Yani married a woman from Nessebur – Hrisopi, who has gained notoriety in the clan for being the first to have a pet (a little white doggy, with curly hair), who constantly accompanied her. My mother, who was never taught that one should not tell the truth to others, if it will upset them, calls her exceptionally ugly (and adds – Thank God all eyes see differently!). She describes Hrisopi as tall, with thick “negro” lips, with black hair, always coiffured high, always heavily made-up and elegantly dressed. My mother admits that because the children of the family considered her ugly, they ironically called her omorfula, which means a beauty in Greek.

When great-grandmother Irina heard from people, that her son is often seen in the company of this lady, she asked him about his intentions.  He admitted that they were serious and that he was planning to bring his intended to present her to the family. They set up a date for the visit and Irina started to ask him:

“What does our future bride look like? Is she beautiful?”

“Oh, exceptionally!“- answereduncle Yani.

“How beautiful is she – is she more beautiful than Ivanka (the most beautiful woman in Bulgarovo at the time)?”

“Oh, many, many times more beautiful than her!  At least ten times!” – says Yani.

The appointed day came and a luxury phaeton turned up in front of the house in Bulgarovo.  The family had prepared all sorts of food treats, the house was sparkling clean and all were on tenterhooks in expectation of the arrival of the exceptional beauty.  The first lady descending from the phaeton was Hrisopi’s sister and they decided at that first glance, that she was ugly. Then the future bride appeared and they looked at each other in horror, as they found her even uglier.

Despite all this, the visit went swimmingly and when the ladies departed, uncle Yani stayed behind with the family. His mother could not contain her disappointment and said to him “How could you like her, son!” Uncle Yani obviously shared his family’s disappointment with his fiancée and from that moment –even before the marriage had even taken place, Hrisopi never set foot in the homes of any of the family members.  During all his visits to Bulgarovo and later to Aytos, where his mother later moved, Yani always came alone and always had difficulties in coming up with reasons why his wife was unable to come.

When Yani died (he suffered from stomach ulcers) my Grandmother Anna and her sister Theodora attended the burial ceremony. My mother says that she never cried as much as when she lost her uncle Yani – he was much loved.

∞

The middle of the three sisters – Theodora (known lovingly as Dora), married a Greek merchant, called Peter. The family lived in Burgas. They had two sons – George and Michael and one daughter- Irina.

Michael was a bank clerk and a very gifted linguist.  He was constantly learning new languages.  He was known in the family as a man, who ate only expensive, sophisticated food, in small quantities. Despite the fact that he was considered to be somewhat retiring and strange, he married Angelina and they had two sons – George and Theodore.

Theodore was attracted by the sea – he became a radio engineer on a ship, married and has one son.

George who in fact is the youngest child of the family, became an economist.  He worked for some time as an economist in Sunny Beach resort, but spent most of his life working for the Bulgarian fleet – he travelled on tanker ships.

He married Helena, who according to my mother justified her nickname “the Beautiful Helena” and had two children. Katerina was Helena’s daughter from her first marriage and their son Lyubomir, who also became an engineer. He is married and has two children – a boy and a girl.

Irina, the second child of the family and my beloved auntie Rinna was an exceptional beauty in her youth.  Elegant, dark-eyed and dark haired, my mother compares her to the prototype of “Carmen”. She lived in Burgas with the family.

Immediately after the school term finished, she arrived in Aytos, where she spent all holidays with her first cousin, my mother – Mila. The girls enjoyed their time together – they were either following couples in love round the town and the park, or sang on the balcony of the house in harmony. Often the family, with aunt Rinna, went for visits to Pomorie, where they had relatives, who had a large restaurant near the sea. The girls enjoyed playing with their children.

My mother shares something, which I thought sounded interesting. Despite the fact the both her Greek parents spoke Bulgarian poorly and with and accent, Irina always thought of and presented herself as Bulgarian. My mother, on the other hand, with three Greek grandparents, who spoke pure Bulgarian, has always presented herself as Greek. Go figure!?

Auntie Rinna married Illya Kolarov – son ofmigrants from southern Thrace, whose roots were from Koprivshtitza. He graduated economics and was a man with an open, positive and direct character, with passion in his heart.

As my mother and aunt Rinna had grown up almost like sisters, I also feel very close to their children, my cousins Peter and Malinna.  Our families visited each other often and we have many memories of playing together in (mostly) their yard. Even my children have memories of playing with a tortoise, who lived in their yard and always wanted to visit aunt Rinna and the tortoise, when we came to Burgas.

Peter was two years older than I was.  He became a naval engineer and spent most of his life at sea. He married an accountant from Sofia, called Emilia and moved to live there (when he was not at sea). They have two children – Illiyan and Ruzhina.  Unfortunately, Petyodied several years ago.

My cousin Malinna, whose name I gave to my daughter, is several years younger than I am. She graduated the German Language School and then economics. For most of her life, she worked as an accountant for the Town Hall in Burgas.  Malinna married my classmate Svetlozar Popovski – one of the nicest men I know, with a warm and sunny disposition, whose father is a Macedonian. They have two children – Krassimir and Illiya.

Krassi graduated the Seminary, and then acquired an MA and a PHD in Philology of the Old Bulgarian language. Besides being an ordained priest in a church in Sofia, where he lives, he often participates in projects, which publish old manuscripts from the libraries of the Aton monasteries. He is also married to a lady from Sofia – Desislava – they have one daughter.

Illiya graduated Greek philology and now combines his work as a psalt in the “St Cyril and Methodius” Church in Burgas with that of a free-lance translator from Greek language.

∞

The eldest daughter of the family – the “heavenly beautiful” Maria (according to my mother), married a man from Varna (name not known).  He was a wine merchant – a tall, bulky and very strong man.  They had two children – Yanako and Vlayka. However, when Yanako was 2-3 years old and Vlayka was 4-5, their father had a heart attack, while lifting a heavy barrel and died on the spot. The family found it very difficult to adapt to his loss. Maria was dressed in black from top to toe –according to the tradition. She and the children moved to Bulgarovo, to live with her family and she remained with the mourning clothes for much longer than the usually accepted first year.

In the meanwhile, Bulgarovo livened up with the arrival of many workers, hired to repair the existing railway line between Sofia and Burgas. This line had started its operation on the 14th May 1890.  The aim of the reconstruction was to straighten it in order to achieve higher speed and to shorten the time of travel.

A number of material depots opened in the village; workers were looking for local accommodation, there was much to-ing and fro-ing around. The workers were under instruction from a Macedonian engineer, whose name is not recorded in the family archives. Nevertheless, sometimes, somewhere he saw Maria and fell in love with her.

He started to write love letters to her – she did not respond. He came to ask her mother officially for her hand in marriage with a bunch of flowers.  Her mother responded neutrally – she suggested that Maria was old enough to decide on her own, whether she wanted to marry him or not.  Maria refused.  He wrote her a letter, suggesting that if she continued to refuse, he would kill her and then kill himself.  But who believes the extreme threats of a man in love!? – comments my mother.

One day, Maria, still dressed in mourning clothes, went with her young daughter to get water from the fountain in the centre of the village.  Then, the lovesick Macedonian appeared with a knife in his hands.  He pierced her heart and then killed himself.  Little Vlayka started to tear rags from her dress in order to close the wound in her mother’s heart and to stop the flow of blood.  People from the near-by shops and coffee-shops started shouting and ran to the fountain.

Irina, her mother, heard the great commotion in the centre, went out on her balcony and asked the passers-by, running towards the tap “Has the fair arrived, why are so many people running towards the centre?”  When she saw people carrying the body of her daughter, her hair turned white instantly and she fell into a coma.  On the next day (according to Orthodox tradition), the family buried Maria, while her mother, still in a coma, was lying under the watchful eye of the doctor in the flat above.

The body of the Macedonian remained where it fell, people kicked it about with disgust, until the authorities got involved and ordered his burial. This story remained for a long time in the local folklore and was retold from generation to generation.  It remained one of the greatest tragedies in my mother’s family.

My mother described Maria’s son – Yanaki as the bon-vivant of the family. He was over 2 metres tall, thin, proportionately shaped, with black hair, a white face and large dark eyes.  He had small moustaches and the most charming and disarming smile – inherited from his mother.

After his mother’s death, he was adopted by a rich family in Pomorie.  When Yanaki grew up, he started work in the shops of his uncles Peter and Ivan.  Besides being handsome and possessing immaculate taste, he had a serious shortcoming – he was a habitual gambler.  This did not impact majorly on his life, as it seems he won more than he lost.

Yanaki lived in a large flat, near the old Courts of Law in Burgas and married the beautiful Nadezda.  They had one daughter – Maria, who graduated engineering and married an apothecary.  She lives in Sofia.

Vlayka, who witnessed her mother’s dramatic death, was looked after by her family.  My mother was not sure who looked after her at the beginning, immediately after her mother’s death – possibly her grandmother, but after her aunts’ marriages, she spent all her time in their families.  A beauty, (but according to my mother, not as beautiful as her mother) and a good hostess, she marries a bright man from Gabrovo – Marko Kalimanov.

Marko, also a trader, had developed some commercial or financial interrelations with my grandfather, which fared badly and the contacts between the two families worsened.  Despite this, my mother and auntie Rinna often visited them and my mother comments of the fact that they were always warmly met by their aunt Vlayka.  They lived on “Vuzrazdane” Street in Burgas, in a house a little further up from the house our family had at the very beginning of the street.  I knew their house from my childhood (during communist times, our house on “Vuzrazdane” was nationalized by the communist government a long time before), not only because relatives still lived in it, but because there were two lions above the front gate.  I loved them, when I was little and was very sorry, that our houses did not have any!

Aunt Vlayka had two daughters – Maria and Velichka.  Maria looked completely like her aunt Anna – my granny, not only in appearance, but also in character.  She graduated university and married a professor in Sofia. Unfortunately, due to a fall and breaking of some bones, she spent most of her life in a gypsum cast. Aunt Vlayka went to Sofia to look after her daughter. As the family was well-off prior to the fall of communism and had two flats in Sofia, aunt Vlayka remained there until the end of her life.

Vlayka’s younger daughter Velichka, became a fashion icon in Burgas.  She was well known with her extremely short, blond hairstyle – nobody had such short hair at the time – communism had installed fear in everybody’s heart.  She impressed her fellow citizens with her extravagant clothes, as well as her little pet dog.  Like any other beautiful and elegant women in the town, she became object of rumours.  My mother confirms, and I remember Velichka well enough to agree that her self-esteem was justified – my mother compares her to a Greek statuette – both in body and head.

Velichka married a man, whose Christian name, my mother has not given me and I do not remember, but his surname was Koshev.  He was a complete opposite to his wife –he was a very modest, unassuming and unpretentious man.  My mother is of the opinion that his disparity of their characters gave birth to the rumours in Burgas.

They had one son, who is my age now – Vesselin Koshev.  He graduated the German Language School in Burgas, then German Philology in Sofia, where he married a daughter of one of the Todor Zhivkov’s ministers.  (Zhivkov was the Bulgarian Prime minister through most of the years of communism).  He has one child from the first marriage, then they divorced and in time, he married again. At the second marriage, the Russian nationalist politician Zhirinovsky became his best man.

Both Maria and Velichka suffered from heart problems.  Maria’s heart was operated on in Hungary.  Velichka also survived a heart operation.  I am not sure when Maria died, but Velichka died sometime in the beginning of the 1980-s.  Her husband followed into the grave fairly quickly.

∞

My great-grand mother Irina woke up from the coma and continued to live in Bulgarovo.  But, when she was left on her own, she decided to move in with her youngest daughter – Anna and live in Aytos.

Despite all the dramas in her life, she died at the age of 104. Journalists came to interview her and they asked her which was the happiest time of her life. She thought for some time and said “During the Turkish time, darling!”

∞

The youngest daughter of the family – Anna – my grandmother was 13 when Pomorie burnt and the family moved to Bulgarovo. My mother says little about her childhood and teenage years.  On her wedding photograph, she is tall, with a broad face with white-pink complexion, big blue-green eyes and blond hair. (I think my cousin Violeta looks very much like her).

My grandfather Ivan, met her somewhere and fell in love with her. And here, I find interesting omissions in my mother’s notes.  The following details are missing.  I know from my childhood, that my grandfather officially went to ask her mother for Anna’s hand.  Irina asked him questions and got him to tell her who he was, and what he earned his living from. Unsatisfied with his answers, she refused.  He was left with the feeling that he did not possess the material wealth to deserve Anna for his wife. But, he was persistent – he doubled his efforts to improve his financial wellbeing and with it, his position in society.  He asked for Anna’s hand three times, but the result was always No. But, at the same time, he was encourages by the fact that Anna did not accept other marriage proposals, which gave him hope. His proposal was finally accepted 7-8 years later.

They got married in 1923 and lived in an old house in the centre of Aytos. I will continue with their story in a subsequent chapter.

 

https://www.librev.com/index.php/discussion-bulgaria-publisher/2675-1906)