This past weekend, Prilep hosted Pivo Fest, or Beer
Fest. It was a 4-day, annual celebration
that typically attracts over 100,000 visitors to our small town. Since discovering that I would live in Prilep,
I was both excited for and worried about this festival. I was happy to know that the town that I
lived in commemorated a day to beer and grilled meat. But I also worried about hosting other PCVs
from other towns and protecting my reputation (and the reputation of Americans)
within my site.
Before I write a post about what happened this Pivo Fest, I
feel like I need to write a disclaimer.
Thus this post serves as that, as well as an overall explanation of the
attitude and culture of alcohol and drinking in the Republic of Macedonia, as
well as among PCVs. It is a post that I
have mentally prepared to write for my whole service, and it has taken me
almost a full year to grasp the drinking culture in this country.
First Impressions
As I was preparing to embark to Macedonia, I had some
stereotypes about drinking among Slavic cultures. Many of us Americans share the same
stereotypes- that people from cold climates, like Russia, Ukraine, and Poland,
drink liters of vodka each day, especially in the winters to keep warm. When I first hung out with RPCVs in Chicago,
some of them who lived in countries like Georgia and Turkmenistan said that it
is expected of men to drink a whole bottle of liquor on nights of hanging out
with the locals. I mentally prepared
myself to give my liver a rough beating until it was trained to tolerate as
much liquor as these rumors were telling me.
As we arrived to Macedonia, I instinctively avoided drinking
too much alcohol among the locals so that I can be more attentive to the
language and pick up on subtle cultural cues.
For example, when we first arrived at our training sites, I refused beer
or alcohol, and instead drank water, just to make sure that my host family did
not think that I drink too much.
By the time we had our training for alcohol safety at a hub
day in Kumanovo, the Peace Corps training staff used their whole arsenal to diffuse
any misconceptions we had about the drinking culture in Macedonia. Overall, they agreed that, yes, Macedonia has
a drinking culture. But it is more of a
sipping culture, and it is not the binge drinking culture like the stereotypes
may say. Rakija, wine, or beer are drunk
during most meals, and during special occasions, but they are drunk slowly and
enjoyed over company. While men, and
sometimes women, are expected to drink during dinner or during special
occasions, the HCNs highly disapprove upon binge drinking and of people
becoming too imbibed.
My whole training group in Lozovo wholeheartedly adapted
this policy. Not only did we avoid
getting drunk, but we would sometimes go for a walk or hide behind our
classroom when we wanted to enjoy one beer with each other. Lozovo was a small town, and we knew that any
mistakes we made when being drunk, or simply by being seen too many times
drinking (even with one beer) in the streets may hurt our reputation. In small towns, word travels faster than the
trains. During my whole time in
training, I only got drunk once, and after being too loud while walking in the
streets during that moment, I thought my reputation would be ruined in the
village (Luckily, it was not. My PST
host mom never even mentioned how silly I was that day). Similarly, all PCVs looked forward to hub
days for the simple fact that we could enjoy more than a couple of beers in the
company of Americans. Hub days were our
sanctuary, because we were in a town where people did not know us personally,
and even if we became buzzed that evening, by the time our kombi drove us back
to our village, the alcohol would have been processed completely within our
system, leaving us much more sober, albeit sleepy.
Change in Atmospheres, Change in Perceptions
By the time I moved to my site in Prilep, my perceptions of
alcohol and Macedonian culture changed again.
Here I was in a larger city with plenty of young people, and on the
first nights that I went out with them, I was acting like an older person in a
small village. Accustomed to drinking
slowly, I experienced culture shock as young people would order bottles of wine
and beer in order to get wasted in the clubs.
It took me some time to realize that drinking culture depends on the
atmosphere in which one lives. Smaller
villages will be more conservative than larger towns, and thus I had to reshape
what I thought about drinking culture.
As I started to go out in Prilep or hang out with my
counterparts, I started to question what Peace Corps had taught us. They had prepared us to adapt to the drinking
culture in smaller villages and among older adults. But they did not prepare us to adapt to the
drinking culture among younger people in larger towns. How much am I expected to drink as a
man? How would those expectations change
for women? Of course, one should always
be safe and not binge drink. But how
imbibed is acceptable? And how imbibed
do these young Macedonians expect us to be in order to make them feel
comfortable around us when they drink?
My counterparts have complained to me many times that I do not get drunk
around them, and they promised me that one of these days they will get me
drunk. Peace Corps had never trained me
how to prepare against these statements, nor have they clarified whether
statements like these are offhand comments, or if they lie deeper into a
subsection of the culture within Macedonia.
One of the cheapest things to do in Macedonia
Even though Macedonia has a sipping culture in regards to
alcohol, its legal and economic policies regarding alcohol say otherwise. Alcohol is everywhere (in Christian
communities) and is very cheap to attain.
Most families distill or brew their own rakija or wine. Many families either own or know somebody who
grows their own grapes, and in the fall they distill the alcohol for
consumption throughout the year. Below I
will give a quick explanation of the types of alcohol most consumed in
Macedonia.
Rakija- This liquor is similar to brandy, and it is often
distilled using grapes. However, some families experiment by making rakija with
plums or other fruits. There are
typically two types of rakija- “white” and “yellow”. White rakija is the purest form of the
liquor, and yellow rakija is infused with bark during the distilling process,
giving it its hue and making the drink slightly “smoother”. Rakija is usually 80 proof, but many families
distill it so that it is much stronger.
Rakija is also usually the cheapest alcoholic beverage available at
restaurants, costing less than a euro for a shot (to be sipped, of course).
Wine- I really looked forward to drinking the Macedonian
wines before arriving in this country, since I really enjoyed drinking a nice
glass of dry, red wine on some nights after working in the USA. Many will say that Macedonia has a burgeoning
wine industry, which is somewhat true, especially since wine here can be pretty
cheap (an acceptable bottle of Macedonian red wine costs about 2 euros). However, most of the wine in Macedonia,
either professionally created or homemade, is too sweet in my opinion. Also, most wines are slightly carbonated or
fizzy. Many Macedonians continue to mix
their wines, fusing red with cola and white with sparkling water. I have likewise adapted this practice, mixing
red wine with diet cola, since the wine is nothing like a good cabernet
sauvignon in the USA, and otherwise is already bubbly and too sweet.
Beer- I have never been disappointed by the beer in
Macedonia because I came to this country with low expectations. It is almost impossible to get any beer in
Macedonia that is not a pilsner or a lager.
Beers here are designed to be light and refreshing. It seems that the Macedonian palette is not
designed for hoppy, bitter, or sweeter beers.
Again, buying a bottle of beer is cheap (one can purchase a Zlaten Dab,
in my opinion the best tasting beer in Macedonia, for about 2 euros for a
plastic 1.5L bottle). Thus, these light,
tasteless beers are designed to refresh and intoxicate.
Our Sweet Escape
Now given all that I described here about the drinking
culture in Macedonia, one must be aware of the problems that alcohol poses to
the Peace Corps world. In most countries
where PCVs are stationed, alcohol is a major obstacle to a volunteer’s
service. Of course, in some countries
alcohol is forbidden (ie. many Islamic countries) or traditionally frowned upon
when women consume it. But most
countries experience some sort of incident with PCVs becoming too drunk and
making a scene. For example, a PC staff
from HQ once told us that a group of agricultural development volunteers, who
were mostly males and recent graduates, had figuratively destroyed their host
country (Zambia) through their incessant drinking and drunken romping.
Even though most PCVs join Peace Corps with good intentions,
one can understand how alcohol can be the ideal escape. As volunteers try to adapt to culture shock,
experience difficulties with host families or counterparts, miss family and
friends back home, feel isolated in their community, or start to get bored or
despondent at their work sites, alcohol may be the only available release for
these volunteers.
PCVs in Macedonia may not experience the isolated,
alcoholic-like issues that other PCVs from other parts of the world may face, since
we usually have access to wi-fi internet in our places, or since it is
relatively easy to leave site and make it to a larger town within a couple of
hours. However, adapting to a new
culture, living with host families, and struggling with a slower or different
work environment often leads us with urges to relax and throw a few back among
other Americans. Thus, if we decide to
binge drink, we will often do so among ourselves in enclosed settings. We will escape to some apartment, become
intoxicated among ourselves, and if we decide to go out, we will choose a club
or other loud, dark space where we can blend in with the surroundings.
Thus, most PCVs in Macedonia have adopted a two-faced
approach to alcohol drinking. Generally,
we restrict how much we drink around HCNs and try our best to preserve our
reputations publicly. However, when we
get together as a group of Americans, we will secretly indulge in alcohol
drinking in order to avoid creating a scene.
We try to simultaneously find an instantaneous escape from our troubles
while preserving the reputation of Americans and ourselves in our host
country. In a way, our approach to
drinking alcohol is similar to the approach of the average Macedonian youth,
since they often stick to binge drinking in the clubs in order to avoid being
talked about in the rumor mill that is often Macedonia. In other words, you will seldom see a
Macedonian youth walk around drunk during the day, or get wasted at a family
party (ie. at an imenden, or name day event).
So here is where this prelude leads to Pivo Fest. Pivo Fest is everybody’s excuse to be
publicly intoxicated. One can compare
Pivo Fest to Oktoberfest, or for a more local comparison, to the South Side
Irish Parade a few years back. The main
square of Prilep is filled with stands of beer and BBQ, and music is playing at
every station. On this holiday,
Macedonians release their inhibitions and are more inclined to be publicly
intoxicated. Now do not get me wrong-
people are not rambunctious and destroying the city. However, women are more likely to drink more
than a couple of beers in clear daylight, and men are more likely to release
their drunken emotions in song and dance as they sit among friends. And since everybody accepts that this behavior
is normal for Pivo Fest, people are less likely to spread rumors that they saw
this person or that person get drunk in the center.
So, in the spirit of “When in Rome,” the PCVs who came to
Pivo Fest had a grand ole time. And at
this point, I think most readers will understand how unique Pivo Fest is, and
that PCVs in Macedonia do not embark on these types of celebrations every week
within service. Pivo Fest is a lot of
fun, but it is also an anomaly.
