The Province

Each time I visit a provincial town I always seem to get a feeling of deja vu. They all look the same with their distinctive charm, slow rythm of the streets and curious but open people, who seem to wander in no precise direction. Some of them are especially catchy and interesting to me- they are inevitably the most colourful detail in sometimes gloomy provincial scenery.

With their cravings confined only to satysfy a burning desire for a sip of liqor, they are flowing with the lazy motion of provicial time. Crowding on square benches and shop windows niches they contemplate the complexity of the world trying to find the best way to survive another day. Provincial drunkards whose tired, alcoholic glances bend the sorrowful reality to the needs of drunk minds, like magicians, with every sip they slide deeper into the ilusive, carefree existence where the thoughts seem to stretch and imagination blasts with the most unbelievable ideas. Some smiling benignly in the alcoholic blackout, some skirmishing over perochial life or death matters, others mumbling about the long lost youth and innocence. On and on... from the bright morning till the darkening night, from the first to the last drop.

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Jan Gotard "Drunkard" (1929)

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