This summer I've been lucky enough to spend time exploring some of the lesser-known parts of the Black Sea Coast. One place in particular was a perfect holiday paradise, complete with deserted beaches, breathtaking scenery and astonishingly friendly locals. I was thinking of telling you all about it, but that would of course ruin the whole point - that few people know about it and even less people go there. You'll just have to take my word for it - it's lovely.
This is the recurring problem that plagues all undiscovered locations. They contain within them the seeds of their own destruction. Unspoiled paradises are spoiled by the very people who come to enjoy them. Just take a look at Ibiza - a one time Shangri-la for artists and hippies that has quickly descended into a meat-market for peroxide blonde airheads who think that 'avant-garde' means downloading the latest polyphonic ringtone. Once word gets out about paradise, you can be sure it won't last long.
It's a fact that any long-serving devotee of the seaside village of Vama Veche will verify. Misty-eyed Vama Veterans will verify that the 'old customs-point' before the Bulgarian border was a very different place 'back in the day'. Though I'm sympathetic to those who've seen the place go from a remote hangout for non-conformists and intellectuals, to the sprawl of bars, clubs, restaurants and hotels that it is today, there's clearly no going back to the way the place used to be. Things have even changed enormously since the first time I visited, just four years ago. Today, new constructions spring up literally every week.
Though the place itself might have changed, much of the old atmosphere thankfully remains. It's this which keeps people coming back year after year. In fact, it was only after visiting Mamaia for the first time this summer and realising how horrible the over-priced and over-hyped resort is, that I came to truly appreciate the value of Vama Veche. There really is nowhere else like it. The closest thing to the atmosphere there is of one big, summer-long, free music festival.
It's not inappropriate, then, that the current campaign to 'Save Vama Veche' itself culminates with a festival - 'Stufstock'. I must admit to having been slightly suspicious of a movement that plans to save a place by hoping to attract hordes of noisy, littering thrill-seekers to it. Surely holding a party in Neptun would be a better way to save Vama? However, the only way of sustaining such an argument is by denying the changes that have taken place in recent years. The Vama of old has disappeared for good. There are other stretches of beach that you can escape to for a taste of rural idyll (as I discovered for myself). People now go to Vama Veche for another reason - because it provides an alternative.
"In any case," journalist Mircea Toma explains, one of the key members behind the Save Vama Veche movement, "the concert is just one small part of what we are doing. It's a vehicle for a much wider message about the way in which development in this area should take place." It's a method that's been extremely successful. The initial plans of the local Primaria involved increasing the accommodation capacity of Vama Veche and the neighbouring village of 2Mai from 6,000 to more than 20,000. The plans also involved constructing eight-storey buildings on the coastal stretch between the two villages. It was only through Stufstock and the Save Vama Veche campaign that the plans have been halted, at least for the time being, and the Save Vama Veche team given a role in overseeing building in the area.
Don't get me wrong - the Save Vama Veche group's aims are commendable and their success so far impressive. They're setting a precedent for the way that development in general should take place in Romania, insisting that it must not be at the expense of what makes this country so exceptional in the first place. However, there is another problem. The way the Stufstock movement hopes to protect the alternative cultural slant that Vama Veche has now risks alienating the very people it should be appealing to. Some of the statements written about the festival come dangerously close to drawing a line in the sand which separates 'good' and 'bad' music in a way which already looks anachronistic. Authentic music - 'rock, blues, jazz, folk' - is set in opposition to modern electronic music made with samplers and synthesisers.
Much of the problem is that the musical agenda of the festival is too keen to play to the outdated 'Rocker' stereotype, one of the three musical tribes that divided Romania into after the revolution. In the early 90's, one was either a 'Rocker', a 'Rapper' or a 'Depeche'. In today's musical climate, an 'alternative' festival that insists on only inviting 'proper' rock bands is as outmoded as having a festival which only plays music by Snap and MC Hammer (though I'd be the first in the queue for tickets, believe me).
Though the rather romantic Rocker ideal might capture what one generation considers to be 'alternative' music, it increasingly fails to match the exciting, challenging and unconventional music that 'the kids' are listening to at the moment. Thanks to the internet, Romanian youth, keen to look for an alternative to Manele, painfully bland Progressive House or commercial pop, are often positioned right on the cutting edge of alternative music. Youth today are leaps ahead of what they're actually being offered. It's not that their interests - often taking onboard everything from beautifully melodic electronica and dreamy Lo-Fi to leftfield Hip-Hop - aren't being considered in the ethos of the festival. More importantly, it's the fact that such interests could be construed as antithetical to the festivals agenda itself.
It can start to look worryingly like musical luddism. It's a bit like the crowd that heckled Bob Dylan when the one-time folk traditionalist first 'went electric' in 1965. Cries of 'Judas' could be heard from the audience for his sin of breaking the golden rule of the time by using (the horror!) modern equipment like the electric guitar. Rather ironically, Dylan now forms part of the musical cannon that 'real Vamaiots' are supposed to listen to. A festival for non-conformists - for open-minded music fans looking for an alternative; for those dissatisfied with the mainstream - needs to encourage what's really happening at the moment. It otherwise risks being trapped in the rut of cultural conservatism.
Stufstock will take place between the 3rd and 4th of September. Show your support.
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