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A fascinating collection which deserves all of the attention it can get. I read this whilst travelling around the Balkans and Caucasus (which has both former USSR states and former independently communist countries, e.g. Albania), and it was fascinating to see the opinions and experiences of the guesthouse owners reflected in the book so perfectly.

This is a fascinating oral history that in its first part tells the story of Bulgarian dancing bears, removed from performance into (relative) freedom in nature reserves. In the second half Szablowski speaks to a variety of people from Cuba. to Estonia, to Kosovo about their experiences of the post-Soviet world. From dyed-in-the-wool party members to black-marketeers, pro-EU campaigners and those determined to roll back capitalism. He paints a striking, complex and often uncomfortable picture of what the fall of Communism has really meant for those formerly of the Soviet Bloc. In particular he focuses on those prepared to overlook the crimes of the old regimes in the face of rising prices, unemployment, homelessness, and cultural alienation in modern Europe. He compares the current trend towards revisionism and nostalgia to the habit of the old dancing bears, who, even after years of freedom still dance to the old tunes when given the right cues.

Szablowski features very little in the interviews he records. There is no direct interviewer’s voice, only the responses his questions receive. It is often funny to hear vehement refusals and accusations to questions the readers doesn’t hear and I imagine the technique is to bring reader and interviewee closer and give the impression of unedited speech. It’s very effective for the reading experience and maintains a lively and engaging read but on such a divisive and ideological subject it does leave me wondering about the technique of the interviews. What is there in these gaps?

Szablowski shows sympathy with all of his subjects, even the most hostile and there is a marvellous dry tone to his writing. He clearly doesn’t agree with the most vehement apologists but he demonstrates understanding for those struggling with the flaws of the new system. After all, nostalgia is a powerful ameliorative force and for many capitalism and liberalism has not transformed their difficult lives. There is an excellent interplay of the funny and the profound and the parallels he draws between the two halves of the book are more sensitive than they might appear.

Particularly interesting considering the trend towards rehabilitating figures such as Stalin.

Interesting and thought provoking.
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There’s a fascinating premise behind this book by the Polish journalist Witold Szabłowski. Its first half is devoted to the tale of how Bulgaria’s entry into the EU obliged it to forbid the keeping of dancing bears, thereby destroying one of its cherished traditions. Following the ‘rescued’ bears in their new home, Szabłowski looks at how the animals are coping with their new ‘freedom’ and also follows the fate of their former keepers. In the second half of the book, the bears’ clumsy encounter with their new freedom forms the framework for a series of vignettes assembled in various Eastern and Central European countries, whose peoples are still struggling to define their identities and purpose in the aftermath of Communism. Unfortunately the second half doesn’t live up to the promise of the first part, but the book as a whole offers a glimpse of an unfamiliar world struggling in that gap between death-throes and birth-throes.


The town of Belitsa in southern Bulgaria is home to the Dancing Bears Park, a thirty-acre nature reserve which currently enjoys a 4.5 star rating on Tripadvisor. Szabłowski is intrigued by the story of its resident bears, which were ‘liberated’ from the Roma families who had trained them to perform as dancing bears, a popular tradition once seen across much of Central and Eastern Europe. With Bulgaria’s admission into the EU, however, such treatment of animals had to come under the directives followed by other European countries. The animal charity Four Paws took it upon themselves to rescue and rehome these bears in a park painstakingly arranged to recreate their natural habitat.

There’s just one problem. The bears who were taken to Belitsa didn’t understand their natural habitat. Free roaming among trees and rivers wasn’t natural for them. They were used to living with families, to performing in return for titbits and to having all their basic needs provided for. Once they were carried off to Belitsa, away from the only people they’d ever known, the bears were faced with a conundrum. They were free, but they’d never asked to be free. They were suddenly released from the obligation to perform and from the nose-rings that their keepers used to control them, but they had no idea how to react to their new environment. Szabłowski describes how the bears have to be taught how to be free: how to interact with one another; how to find food; how to hibernate. Freedom, he argues, doesn’t come naturally. In fact, it can be terrifying.

And, using the bears as a basis, Szabłowski goes on to explore how people in former Communist countries have experienced a similar dizzying grant of ‘freedom’. Whether they wanted it or not, people in these countries have been given systems which require a completely different approach from the world in which they grew up. Some have adjusted to a new world of capitalism, seeking to take every opportunity they can and to establish themselves in their country’s new elite. Others are almost paralysed by confusion, resentful at having a Western European system imposed on them which no longer offers the securities they could once depend on. Healthcare, pensions and secure jobs for life are no longer guaranteed in this scary new world. Indeed, the people of Belitsa itself have a complex attitude to their popular bear park. While it brings in the tourists, the community finds it hard to warm to an enterprise where the animals receive the best food, dentistry and financial support – a far cry from what any of the local families can hope to enjoy.

Leaving Belitsa behind, Szabłowski sets off on a journey through other former Communist countries which are trying to adjust to the demands of a new capitalist world. On his way he tries to meet as many people as possible: housewives; illegal second-hand car salesmen greasing the palms of guards at border points; students; and those seeking to find new ways to reinvigorate failing communities. He is always balanced, mixing the optimistic voices of the new with the confused and frustrated voices of the old. On the Ukrainian border he meets Yevheniya Cherniak, a cleaner who works much of the time in Poland and who admires that country’s regeneration since its entry into the EU. On the contrary, she disparages her own countrymen, including her husband, who sit apathetically at home in Ukraine waiting to be cared for, as they were under the old system. Or Szabłowski goes to Cuba, where he finds a country waiting anxiously for a new direction as the days of its cherished Fidel Castro come to an end.

Cuba feels like something of an outlier, because all the other stories take place in Eastern Europe, and I’m not sure it really added anything to Szabłowski’s point (why not then go to China as well?). He returns to more familiar ground, visiting Albania, where enterprising teams demolish the bunkers left over from Soviet occupation and sell the materials for profits. He experiences the simmering resentment between Estonians and Russians in eastern Estonia, where the Soviet era has left two populations divided by language and outlook; he takes a walking tour in Belgrade themed around the life of the war criminal Radovan Karadžić; he visits angry workers in Greece whose lives have been destroyed by economic collapse (‘If I wanted to be a German, I’d dye my hair blond and start getting up at six‘); and he meets the elderly female custodians of the Stalin Museum in Gori, Georgia, who still grow starry-eyed over their dead hero. Perhaps his most bizarre visit is to his native Poland, where regeneration attempts have focused on the creation of themed villages, including the Hobbit Village at Sierakowo Sławieńskie.

The second half of the book meanders a great deal and there were points when I almost gave up. I couldn’t quite see what Szabłowski was getting at with each section, although the overall message came through loud and clear. It felt occasionally as if he were painting on too large a canvas, which is a shame, because the first half of the book – with its tight focus on the bears, their rehabilitation and his sensitive treatment of their former keepers – works much better. Nevertheless, this opens doors onto a vast realm of experience that I rarely get to understand in my comfortable Western life. Moreover, it emphasises how multivarious Europe really is and the challenges that will face us going forward, as we try to knot these disparate countries – not only politically (which my country has already rejected) but also culturally. But it has resonance beyond our continent, showing exactly why people might be seduced by authoritarian regimes. It seems, as Szabłowski himself says, that ‘Freedom is a terribly complicated business.’

This review can be seen on my blog here:
https://theidlewoman.net/2018/04/11/dancing-bears-witold-szablowski/

More depressing and obvious than incisive and heartbreaking, and for the first half, I was struck by the feeling that those being interviewed were not being truthful, or perhaps were reciting their particular brand of truth. I did not enjoy reading about people held captive with no power of any choices in their lives, who could not adapt to freedom once it was theirs. The bears I can understand, as they probably do not understand what has happened to them or why, but the people in this book at least believe that they know right from wrong, and that the world is a practical place while simultaneously honoring beliefs that clearly are not realistic or rewarding.

The Estonian Russians, victims of the policy to send Russians to live in all the areas they have taken, and stranded after the collapse of the USSR, are salt fish in pure water. They have lived there for ages, but do not belong. Not accepted as Estonian, and not wanting to be Russians. Lost their privilege after the collapse, and unable to cope.

Mainly, reading the first half just angered me. I feel like the author surveyed only people who were sulking about having to deal with the real world, or who could not understand that their lost privilege, which they had accepted as their due, was at the expense of others and not their natural born right.

Another version of this book, newly published in its first English translation, has the subtitle "True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny". That sums up perfectly what it's about - both humans and bears who can't seem to break the bonds that held them under Communism and captivity, respectively. 

Polish writer Witold Szabłowski writes a book reminiscent of the social travel narratives written by his countryman Ryszard Kapuscinski. The first half tells the story of the famous dancing bears of Bulgaria, a long-standing industry in certain Eastern European countries among certain groups. Romani have been "training" brown bears to "dance" for years, considering it a tradition of sorts, as well as the main moneymaker for some families. Until 2007, when the last ones were confiscated by an animal sanctuary, Belitsa Dancing Bear Park in Bulgaria.

I use "training" and "dance" lightly, because much as some captors strenuously deny it, most of their training techniques seem to stem from abuse and punishment, not to mention the metal ring piercing their noses used to forcibly control them and create the illusion of dancing when a chain fixes it to the keeper's fiddle. They're fed bread, candy, and alcohol, the latter two of which they're often addicted to, and obviously none of which are part of a healthy bear diet. The Dancing Bear Park, where they can live out the rest of their lives under careful protection and observation but still with more freedom and closer to the natural life they would've had if they hadn't spent years "working", is a paradise considering what they were subjected to.

And yet, like many of the people who survived Communism in the surrounding lands, the bears are often overwhelmed by so much unlimited freedom. They revert to their old ways, standing on their hind legs and swaying when they're stressed, confused, or, sadly, finding themselves with too much time on their hands, since they don't have to forage for food as they would in the wild.

When they see a human being, they stand up on their hind legs and start rocking from side to side. As if they were begging, as in the past, for bread, candy, a sip of beer, a caress, or to be free of pain. Pain that nobody has been inflicting on them for years.

It's not all happily ever after for other reasons beyond the bears' difficult to break habits - the residents of the village of Belitsa aren't exactly thrilled to have the wildlife refuge in their town, especially when they find out how much it costs to run and care for the animals. The amounts of money are astronomical to them (half of the park's funding comes from Brigitte Bardot), and it is somewhat difficult to reconcile the expensive rehabilitation project in the midst of a country still slowly, painfully recovering from the ravages of Communism. But the animal abuse had to end and it brings tourism to the town, so it's not all bad. But that's part of the lesson here - change doesn't come easy to anyone in these encounters or in these lands.

Regime-Change Land is the lava that began to pour from the volcano known as the "Soviet Union and its satellites" shortly before it erupted and ceased to exist. Our part of the world did of course have an earlier existence - the Poles, Serbs, Hungarians, and Czechs, for example, have long histories. But since World War II we had been living in the Soviet sphere of influence, put on ice by the agreements concluded at Yalta by Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill, which had left us on the dark side of the balance of power.

Szabłowski is so adept at drawing parallels between the bears and the people of the former Communist and Iron Curtain countries. The book, despite the often heavy or grim subject matter, is a delight to read. The material is fascinating, the writing compelling and often surprisingly funny and witty, and even in translation the storytelling is excellent. There's almost something similar to Svetlana Alexievich about his style, particularly in the book's second half, which addresses the people of multiple countries used to authoritarian rule longing misty-eyed for the better days of the past. He allows them to speak in their own words, often in extended monologues, where they give vent to their frustrations and compare life then and now. Unlike Alexievich, he writes much more about his travels and the history himself, and his curation of his interview subjects isn't the majority of the book.

Cuba, Poland, Ukraine, Georgia, Albania, Estonia, Serbia and Greece are among the countries visited and peoples interviewed in the book's second half. Greece seemed an odd inclusion to me, but the story is about the recent financial and economic troubles and relationship to Germany because of this, and the Greek perception of capitalism. It was interesting, even though I felt it didn't quite fit with the others. But then again, the same could be said for Cuba, but I thought that chapter's story and interview subjects were more compelling.

One of the most fascinating chapters for me was his visit to the Caucasus, where Szabłowski introduces the "vestal virgins" or "Stalinettes" of the Gori Stalin Museum. They hero-worship the dictator and argue with tourists who confront them about having a museum that doesn't recognize the crimes he inflicted on his own people and those of other Soviet nations, while they continue to vehemently explain away common complaints.

The author doesn't often include his questions, structuring exchanges rather as monologues from his subjects, letting the power of their own personal stories come through. But his influence can be seen, especially in this chapter at the Stalin Museum, where an employee's monologue includes: "Murders? I've just about had enough of you. Here we have a sort of unwritten agreement that if a tourist really gets under our skin, we can go outside the museum to argue with him. But right now we are inside the museum, and I have to stick to the script."

She goes on to berate the Polish people for their frequent attacks on Stalinist history when visiting the museum, saying she doesn't know what to think of them considering this, but that they've come to her country's aid in the past too, so it's complicated. There are so many contradictory and stubborn viewpoints espoused in these stories, it's a wonder Szabłowski had the patience to endure some of their assertions but at the same time, it makes for excellent reading.

An employee at the Belitsa Dancing Bear Park says about the bear's reactions when they first arrive and are released into the protected park after their medical checkups: "When we finally let them out into the forest, they never knew what to do, and at first they'd be just about reeling with freedom...I don't blame them. If someone's only been out on a chain for the past twenty years, that's a normal reaction."

Szabłowski's case for the dancing bear allegory is well earned, and this book manages to do so many things at once and do them well: tell a humane story of how a cruel practice of animal captivity was brought to its end as kindly and carefully as possible, while meanwhile humans struggle to deal with newfound autonomy just like freed animals do, both reverting to habit, memory, and dangerous, flawed nostalgia.

Beautifully told stories of what it feels like to become free after living in restriction, under control, with solid parallels between an inhumane entertainment custom and the people of many different countries who found themselves asking the same question after authoritarianism crumbled and they were left faced with democracy, wholly unprepared to assume the responsibility demanded of them: What do we do now?

This is a really good book. To start with, you accept the metaphor that an Eastern European removed from the shackles of Communism is like a dancing bear, reduced to wondering what they did wrong and where their next meal is coming from. But then we see the truth – this is about dancing bears, not metaphorically. And by Chapter 3 you clearly see the fact that huge international fund-raising efforts were undertaken, for the sake of a couple of dozen animals at most, and that it was clearly an anti-Gypsy/gadjo/whatever campaign, to remove livelihoods, however debatable, from rural, unemancipated, semi-literate minority families.

The writing is also very educative – who knew one of the benefits-and-acts-combined of the bears was giving back massages, and healing people?! The aforementioned Chapter 3 is at the core of this book – you really do have to admire the way the author backs away from things and just quotes his interviewee at length on the subject, and you do have do ask yourself which is amoral – a couple of dozen enslaved bears, or the man in question's rampant racism against their owners? Both seem too antiquated and plain wrong, but both are sides to the issue that have to be seen and addressed.

And then we find the metaphorical dancing bears after all – the ladies who belovedly guide at Stalin's Museum in Gori (I know them well…), Cubans fearing for a life post-Castro, people giving funky tours regarding Radovan Karadzic the war criminal, stateless Russians in Estonia with no passport to move on, and no language skills to ever call their own country home. In picking concise looks at key places in the world's most interesting recent history, the book is just a winner – if only it were more up-to-date and current, and/or at least acknowledged its vintage.

But what it can easily do is inspire debate – just witness me, almost sounding sympathetic to the bear owners and not the bears. I'd never have expected that. So whether you side with the pioneering workers in Albania, or pity their pittance of a wage, you can engage with this book. Is it right that Europe finally taught Greece to not give people forty year pensions for getting a part-time state job out of nepotism, or is it right that Germany said this was a rum deal, you Greeks need a financial fillip, then proceeded to buy every single utility, airport, dock, shipyard etc at a budget price, and walked away with the profits? This is a wonderful book for providing snapshots of such political issues, that are only going to run and run in their relevance.