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DEMIR KAPIJA
2011

Preface

When I started writing the story about wine, I wanted to avoid all the
mystic entrapments that like red rubies enlightened the way to the birth of this
divine beverage. With facts bright as the light of the torches, the bare truth showed
me how blind audience we were not to see like on a palm arranged evidence, about
one extraordinary space at the flow of rivers Doshnica and Boshavica into the
eternal Vardar.
The place called Iron Gate (Demir Kapija) with all of its beauty and splendor,
with its wild rocks and cliffs hanging over the river, with its eagles masters of the
heights, announces to the traveler the entrance into the tame valley. The scent of
noises and camel sweat, the big wooden barrels of wine and the shining gold and
silk are spinning in the vortex that connects the Middle East with the North and the
West. At this space exchange of goods was made, this ancient market place was
marked with big red dot on the maps of the caravan roads. Through the ages the
famous Tikvesh wine traveled from here to the royal tables and military camps and
fortresses, to embellish the mood of the noblemen and to return the warmth in the
veins of the lonely soldiers, to instill courage in their hearts. In mutual quarrels the
Gods forgot the wine goblet and unwillingly gave wine to the people. Wine has
remained a permanent connection between the supernatural and the natural,
between spiritual and physical, between truth and deception. Women under the
influence of wine lure young men into bed freed from fear and shame. In the warm
and playful bed loaded with desire, in the hands of divine Eros, the body yields in
bliss, ending the passion with a scream that no flame or spring that gushes cold
water can match. That drink is poured when we are born, when we swear and when
we die is a gift greater than sorrow and happiness. Wine is present when we
socialize, when we sing and dance. It has the power to chase out and banish the
darkness out of our souls. Wine, red as our blood has soaked the land of Demir
Kapija, only to be reborn. Here, at the mouth of the river Vardar who grabs his way
through the gorge towards the Aegean, happened the history of wine that I want to
tell.

the author

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