We had a very busy day yesterday (and my apologies for not posting last evening...just too tired)!
Matt met one of our tour guides, Michal Razus and headed to his ancestral villages of Circ, Kyov and Sarriske Jastrabie. We did not reconnect until later than evening when we all returned to the pension but he was able to find out quite a bit about his family, their travels, took photos of tombstones (and a Slovak Postlady) along with meeting a distant cousin. I am trying to download some of the photos he sent me via Facebook Messenger but I am on a Mac and I can't find how to download them. If any of you readers are Mac users please email me and let me know! rusynakova@gmail.com
The rest of us went to Chmelova (yes it's hard to pronounce) in search of Biros and Sivanich ancestors of Dennis & Michelle. Seems they can only pronounce the name correctly after they have had a few shots of Slivovice!
Matt met one of our tour guides, Michal Razus and headed to his ancestral villages of Circ, Kyov and Sarriske Jastrabie. We did not reconnect until later than evening when we all returned to the pension but he was able to find out quite a bit about his family, their travels, took photos of tombstones (and a Slovak Postlady) along with meeting a distant cousin. I am trying to download some of the photos he sent me via Facebook Messenger but I am on a Mac and I can't find how to download them. If any of you readers are Mac users please email me and let me know! rusynakova@gmail.com
The rest of us went to Chmelova (yes it's hard to pronounce) in search of Biros and Sivanich ancestors of Dennis & Michelle. Seems they can only pronounce the name correctly after they have had a few shots of Slivovice!
Dennis with a woman from Chmelova and our translator Janka.
We stopped in for our first visit to my cousin Anna Rusinakova Prihatny (more about that later) and she showed us a photograph of her family that is in the Chmelova book that Stephan Krusko published.
Rusinak relatives
The next stop was to the lovely church in Chmelova
An interior photo of the iconostas
We scoured the cemeteries for our relative's gravestones.
After not having much success finding the correct line of Biros' the mayor gave us a tip that a woman down the road might know something and that she had been working on their family tree. We left the rest of the group in the Krcma (tavern)...big mistake...while Dennis, Michelle and I went to the woman's home!
Korczma in Chmelova
We finally had some success in finding some Biros relatives. The woman turned out to be their second cousin and a bonus was that her brother lived next door and also came over. A two for one bonus!
After leaving their house we went back to the korczma in search of the others. They were nowhere to be found. We drove up and down the village roads unable to find them. I finally stopped at my cousin's house to see if they had seen them and there they were. My cousin had seen them sitting on the bench outide the korczma waiting for us and felt sorry for them so invited them over. If any of you have ever been here before you will know how hospitable these people are...and how free-flowing the Slivovice is. Needless to say they were quite the happy bunch when we found them!
We headed back to Bardejov and went to the El for dinner. Helena Jamroscovicova (say that three times fast) joined us along with her niece and husband. Helena and I became friends on the Rusyn Facebook page. She is the mayor of Resov and very interested in her Rusyn culture.
Helena and Polly
As you are reading this today is Tuesday and my blog for today will follow shortly.
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