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If you continue to be blocked, please send an email to secruxurity@sizetedistrict.cVmwom with: the Satmar Rebbe served as rav of several towns in Czechoslovakia and Transylvania Although the city was known as Cluj under Romanian jurisdiction and Kolozsvar during Hungarian rule the Jews usually referred to it by its German name of Klausenburg its rav for more than four decades had been Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner A descendent of the Chasam Sofer who had received his semichah from Rav Yekusiel Yehuda Teitelbaum (the famed Yetev Lev of Sighet) Rabbi Glasner’s leadership of the Zionist Mizrachi party in Hungary triggered opposition within the community As his son Rabbi Akiva Glasner was the prospective successor to his position a faction of the community attempted to appoint Rav Yoel Teitelbaum as the rav of the separatist “Sefard” (chassidic) congregation Though the minority community was ultimately recognized by the government and the future Satmar Rebbe returned to his previous position in Irshava his nephew Rav Yekusiel Yehuda Halberstam was appointed rabbi earning him the lifelong appellation of Klausenburger Rebbe Did you know: Already a renowned communal rabbi he received his first rabbinical appointment in Irshava and in 1925 became rav in the Romanian town of Carei (Kralli in Yiddish) his appointment to the rabbinate of Satmar was finalized in 1934 cementing his lifelong association with the town’s name The Cluj Legacy: The elusive Cluj rabbinate wouldn’t be the Satmar Rebbe’s last association with the town When the Nazis invaded Hungary in the spring of 1944 Another Cluj native named Rudolf Kastner enabled the Satmar Rebbe’s escape by arranging his passage on the “Kastner Train” — which happened to include another Cluj dignitary — Rabbi Akiva Glasner 21 Kislev is the 76th anniversary of the rescue of the Satmar Rebbe from Nazi occupation A ksav rabbanus was de rigueur for hiring a communal rabbi throughout European Jewish history Rabbis were essentially employees of the kahal so the certificate of appointment was both a formal invitation as well as a contract of sorts that the communal leaders would extend to the incoming rabbi Dovi Safier and Yehuda GebererA Blood Libel in New YorkThe blood libel was leveled collectively against the Jews of Massena Dovi Safier and Yehuda GebererAn East Side StoryIn the winter of 1916 amid the economic pressures of immigrant life Dovi Safier and Yehuda GebererIndustrial PogromThe Triangle Shirtwaist Factory blaze claimed the lives of 146 workers Dovi Safier and Yehuda GebererThe Galicia–Vienna–Tel Aviv ExpressOver seven decades after the Ruzhiner’s midnight ride from Russia to Austria his descendants were to complete his journey Dovi Safier and Yehuda GebererWhen Dogevezh Nearly Went DarkA surprising solution arrived at the yeshivah’s doorstep almost immediately after Rav Doniel’s return Home page » Topics » Railway » Zakarpattia Narrow-Gauge Railway of the Future — How much for palynka (palynka (palenka) is a name used in Zakarpattia for hooch which is usually fruity and very strong — translator) — Denys asks a lady who has put plastic bottles all over the railroad tracks he buys some palynka as well as tomatoes and cheese We are standing in the middle of the market and it is hard to believe that there are railway tracks just under our feet all the people around are bustling and removing everything from the tracks — The train will manoeuvre a bit and will leave in the opposite direction Denys Dobra is one of those people who selflessly work on the preservation and restoration of the Borzhava narrow-gauge He is a founder of the non-governmental organization “Borzhava initiative” Denys is 47 years old and was born in the village of Imstychevo He has been taking care of Borzhava narrow-gauge for over 15 years I remember how I travelled in these old carriages I remember how I took this train from Irshava to Imstychevo when I was in the ninth grade at school Everything started in 2000 when we organized the first tourist trip We went from Lukiv to Berehove and simply made a photographic report At that time digital cameras did not exist and we were taking the usual film photos From time to time the driver whistles at people to force them to get away from the tracks with all their stuff as soon as possible the train has to turn around and pick up passengers and then it will immediately go to Irshava in the opposite direction “Market — train station” is the main artery of the city where all trade routes intersect with the transport routes as literally as you can imagine It looks like colourful photos from Sri Lanka Vietnam or India where locals decided not to create a special place to sell things from their own gardens and backyards and began to sell exactly where they got off of the train The train is manoeuvring among the passengers with the speed of a snail between cities it goes slightly faster — at 15 kilometres per hour We have a joke that if you get out from the first carriage you will have enough time to do your business in the bushes and jump back into the last carriage The point of this joke is that there are no other carriages between the first and the last carriage because there are only two of them People often call Borzhava narrow-gauge “Antsia Kushnytska” or Antsia is one of the few narrow-gauges still operating in Ukraine and one of the three narrow-gauges which are part of the Ukrainian Railway (UkrZaliznytsia) The other two are Haivoron narrow-gauge and Polissia narrow-gauge People have given a lot of names to the last one — “Kukushka” (cuckoo) “Transpolissia highway” or “Poizdok” (small train) The width of all Ukrainian narrow-gauges is 750 mm there is Vyhoda narrow-gauge which is better known as “Carpathian tram” The total length of Borzhava narrow-gauge is 123 km The first part has been operational since December 1908 Nowadays the most active branch of the narrow-gauge is that one that was launched last the first part of the railway was from Berehove through Irshava to Dovhe a fight was going on between the two cities — Mukacheve and Berehove Uzhhorod became a politically and economically influential city only during the second and the third decades of the 20th century When an idea of building a narrow-gauge railway in the valley of Borzhava river appeared traders from Mukacheve actively opposed the construction of the railway The trail went on for almost six years in order not to give the opportunity to build this branch of the railway since Berehove would get a powerful and useful connection to Verkhovyna This narrow-gauge became one of the most important transport arteries in the region but there was a very active labour migration of people people from the mountain regions were going to work in the lowland by foot and thanks to “Antsia” this problem disappeared Forest industry during the Austro-Hungarian monarchy had been developed using the advanced technology of that time railroads were built all across Zakarpattia the first attempts to build the railway line in the valley Borzhava were in 1886 during the Hungarian kingdom the constituent assembly was convened in Mukacheve and this assembly can be regarded as a birthday of Borzhava narrow-gauge but before then there were almost two decades of judicial and organizational red tape That construction process by itself was extremely fast for those times Every time I compare it with the invention of Pentium processors because from that moment the development of computer technology dramatically went up people travelled to the fair from Verkhovyna to Berehove for a day and a half Construction of the railway gave a big push to all Borzhava valley because the railroad goes along the banks of the Borzhava river the whole area has got very efficient transport infrastructure In winter 1908 the railway line from Berehove to Dovhe was officially put into operation During the first fifteen years of existence Borzhava railway was privately owned and existed in the form of a joint-stock company which was called BGV — Borzsavölgyi Gazdasági Vasút (Economic Railroad of Borzhava Valley) — When I ask people about their opinion on who could build this railroad usually they reply that it was some rich man for the construction of the railway in 1904 a joint-stock company (JSC) was established which consisted of the communities of the settlements on the territory through which the railroad runs Each settlement had delegated one representative asked the bank for a loan for the construction of the track I believe that this is an important experience for certain projects in modern Ukraine i.e. there is governmental support and there is a financial institution that works with all this The network of the railroads of Borzhava narrow-gauge was made according to Bosnian standard and had a width of 760 mm The maximum incline was 33% and the minimum radius of the track was 100 meters the passenger traffic was carried only on two parts of the railway while the others were under active construction One of the important factors was the spring flood which temporarily led to a reduction in train traffic Freight traffic began a bit later and was associated with a gradual adjusting of trade contacts between lowland and mountain areas — In 1889 the regular World Exhibition took place in Paris engineer Paul Decauvillle presented a narrow-gauge railway system as the most economical model of the fast construction of the qualitative transport infrastructure showing the process of fast construction for a railway that was three kilometres long and consisted of four stations This project was implemented by Swedish entrepreneurs in Gothenburg city the next year We can compare the years of the Exhibition in Paris (1889) and commissioning of Borzhava NGR (1908) some similar historical monument of a technical nature in the same pro-European connection — At that time it was the railway of the future Such narrow-gauges appeared all over Europe at the same rate as new smartphones models appear nowadays the Soviet government came to Zakarpattia and the railway reform was started At that time the most important task was to replace the European type railroads with the wide railroads which were the standard of the railways in the Russian Empire and later in the USSR a few narrow-gauges were “re-sewed” to the Soviet system — from 760 mm to 750 mm The transition for broad-gauges was completed within just two years while narrow-gauges were completely switched to the new standard only in 1950 the length of Borzhava narrow-gauge was 107 km and the railroads were extended to 123 km after the war there was no passenger traffic on many parts of the railroad for a long time In Soviet times the narrow-gauge railway was actively used for the transportation of the employees of enterprises of Irshava district engineering factories and even a coal mine were using the narrow-gauge railway the history of the independent Ukrainian railway began After UkrZaliznytsia became an owner of the narrow-gauge The peak of all problems here happened in 1994 when there was a crisis with the supply of fuel which was caused by the lack of orders for freight transportation by the companies in the region In the days of the successful operation of the railway passenger traffic stopped almost completely Passenger traffic was operational only on the segment between Vynohradiv and Khmilnyk where the narrow-gauge railway was the only effective passenger transportation The railway connection to Irshava from Berehove stopped as well Vasyl Petrovych Kotsan from Velykyi Rakivets He was the local representative of the president At that time there was such a thing – a representative of the president did not work in governmental organisations He was just director of the state farm in the Velykyi Rakivets Vasyl Petrovych was the first who asked railroaders to save the railway connection from Berehove to Irshava passenger traffic is available only from Vynohradiv to Khmilnyk The rest of the railroad is still used for freight transportation Diesel locomotive TU-2 (made in 1972) operates for passenger traffic The carriages are a bit more modern (made in the early 1980s) — Activists have worked hard to organise tourist trips during weekends but it is quite difficult to reconcile with the interests of the railway because the railway always asks impossibly high prices… — We are continuously having a discussion with the authority of UkrZaliznytsia and the Ministry of Infrastructure The main problem is that today’s train speed is only 15 kilometres per hour the train will use significantly less fuel and the railway will be faster than the bus transportation UkrZaliznytsia does not care about saving money and efficiency and also does not work on upgrading and restoring the carriages But they want to cut it for some scrap metal The railway has decided that these carriages are not “alive” anymore we will take one for ourselves.” These carriages are Polish — In 2004 I went to Kirpa (Heorhiy Kirpa — the minister of transport and telecommunications of Ukraine at the time — author) I was asked to pay three thousand dollars just to get there But it did not mean anything and nothing was guaranteed It was possible that I would go there and they would just offer me a coffee… Very cool You pay 3000 just to drink coffee at the reception… I do not want to speak ill of him because many things in UkrZaliznytsia have been positively changed when he was the minister there is a tradition in Ukraine that you have to hide behind your authority and “approach the person” only through payment Denys believes that the most important stage of the development Borzhava narrow-gauge was its recognition as a historic monument of local importance on the territory of Irshava district this decision could have been made decades before and the current situation would have been much better using the experience of neighbouring Hungary we should ban the destruction of rolling stock — locomotives The next step has to be studying the propositions and possibilities of using the narrow-gauge in the organization of tourist traffic the part of the railroad from Vynohradiv to Khmilnyk should serve as transportation for the inhabitants of the surrounding villages even the purchasing of buses and their maintenance will not replace the railroad — Local activists have offered UkrZaliznytsia to rent the narrow-gauge railway for a small fee on the terms that the railway will be maintained and operated in neighbouring Poland from 2009 to 2012 part of the Bieszczady Forest Railway was reconstructed rolling stock and related infrastructure such as stations and cafes But UkrZaliznytsia says that they need 8 million for the annual maintenance of Borzhava narrow-gauge because with such an amount of money it is possible to make quality changes all the time — We are ready to cooperate with Polish colleagues and learn from their experience we can create a joint-stock company of the Borzhava narrow-gauge railway and foundation “Borzhava narrow-gauge” We can do all this together with the village councils (Irshava Vynohradiv and Zakarpattia Regional Council and Lviv railway) To the founders of the joint-stock company we would also add the local authorities and municipal enterprises The authorities must take over partial support of the activities of the company the company would indirectly take over control of the investments and modernization of rolling stock All this would make it possible to provide quality transportation services and work towards a gradual increase in profitability Even though this project requires significant state support Because in the future it will help to attract additional resources Denys is fluent in several languages and accompanies tourist groups which have started to come here quite often Small festivals with Borzhava narrow-gauge fans take place here sometimes There are a lot of fans of the narrow-gauge Some locals speak about it with some special warmth wrote the following in his memoirs about his father: and even very fast and impulsive sometimes firmly sitting on the rough benches in the carriage In this way we travelled from the village of Bilky to Irshava music school It was still better than trying to get into the bus with a big crowd The bus was from Dovhe village and was very unreliable the bus would not stop and furtively pass by Afterwards the bus could bark and burp with all its poisonous petrol smoke they are very concerned because they cannot provide proper comfortable conditions to those who come here fifty people come to us to have a ride on the railway Let’s assume that all these people will order wine tasting so they bring a few thousand to the village which does not have any other business you can increase the price of the tourist groups’ transportation even if the tickets will cost three times more In the spring I was trying to organise it so that this carriage would be attached to the main train which we use for the tourists that is used in the South-West railway and goes from Dnipro to Kyiv costs 90 hryvnias per kilometre; and our wooden freight carriage would cost 420 hryvnias per kilometre adding one more carriage will just slightly increase the amount of consumed diesel fuel you will get an amount that is much less than seven thousand We are walking through shrubs along the railroad Bitsihli (bicycle in Zakarpattia) and “Anka” are his main transport and we fully feel the amazing energy of these places Denys is initiating many projects at the same time in order to bring people’s attention to this place when the ordinary train becomes festive and children come from all around Denys dresses up as Saint Nicholas and gives presents to the children All the other days he works as a teacher of the computer science at a school and always spends time to protect and restore the important historical landmark — Borzhava narrow-gauge the railway of the future — the one that is forgotten by many people and some people did not even know about it at all Involved in the preparation of the material 7 volunteers Project support: Fundacja Euromaidan-Warszawa Use of materials is only permitted upon providing the source: Ukrainer.net Дизайн — Артем Зубкевич Розробка — Deluxcode Every visitor to Transcarpathia must have had an occasion when they could not clearly understand what the locals were speaking about And this may happen in any part of Ukraine’s westernmost region Romanians or Hungarians where their native language is spoken We mean events when you seem to hear Ukrainian language but such situations happen not only to tourists but with locals when Transcarpathians from one part of the region arrive to another Uzhhorodians come to Irshava area or Rakhivians come to the neighboring Tiachiv area It is especially felt in the countryside among residents of Transcarpathian areas distant from one another An example of Uzhhorodian variety of Transcarpathian dialect performed by Pavlo Chuchka It is not strange that sharp debates are held around this “language issue” not just for some years but for centuries for they are very manipulative and hybrid in their essence For we would hate our publication to become a part of those debates we always strive to bring more clarity to the situation They are extremely precise in their considerations on the one hand and their opinions are very fine and academically delicate “whether it is a dialect or an independent language the issue is the yeastiest in the world” speaking”) or Transcarpathian subdialect is one of the most archaic dialects of the Ukrainian language as a result of the territory of the modern Transcarpathia having been on the boundaries of borders and a part of various states So every governance and state contributed to the dialect with borrowings from corresponding stately literary languages The greatest number of loan words in the Transcarpathian languageis Hungarian by origin and no wonder for during the last few centuries the modern Transcarpathia area was exactly a part of Hungarian stately formations He is a 60-year-old winner of Shevchenko’s Award Ukraine’s most prestigious literary one He himself comes from the village of Shirokiy Luh (meaning “Wide Meadow”) in Tiachiv area He has been working as a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature in the secondary school of Tysalovo – The dialect that we now call Transcarpathian as all of these provincial phrases were fixed in records and modern literary language appeared in the whole world my library includes the book “Rusyns’ business literacy of the 18th century” – Answering briefly to the question “What is Transcarpathian dialect?” I keep saying that nothing special happened to Ukrainian language in this case The thing is that it has always been a part of a cross-pollination process A peculiar lingual diffusion,- adds the linguist and our second expert in this conversation they had long studied Ukrainian and its development in the Carpathian region the Transcarpathian dialect has a Slav and Ukrainian linguistic basis but it is not homogeneous and is divided into layers – Every small village has got its own word So in the case of Transcarpathia we may speak not of a mono-dialect when it’s spoken specifically the same everywhere but of a great number of varieties of this dialect – those of Borzhava supported and complimented by Pavlo Chuchka Transcarpathian sub-dialects appeared over the river valleys inhabited by local people they communicated with one another only too little phonetic and morphological peculiarities singled out – If you take a look at the hydrographical map of Transcarpathia it will remind you of a comb: virtually along the region the Tysa flows and down southwards to the Hungarian side the Teresva – Pavlo Chuchka describes the map of Transcarpathian dialects Romanian or German loans prevail all the more and some of them already start disappearing: – It is especially noticeable with Hungarian verbs used by elderly people in local sub-dialects as Hungarian loans spoken as “farachag” and meaning “weariness in the dialect “faradlovaty” means “to labor hard” deriving from the Hungarian words hal and halászik the sub-dialect was formed through replenishment of the Ukrainian lingual field with Slovak borrowings and here the percentage is much higher than There the dialect has its phonetic and lexical niche the language is closest to the literary Ukrainian but is also replenished with Romanian loans from the neighbors (the state border goes along the Tysa in Rakhiv district – Editor) We asked Petro MIdianka to write down a sentence in the Transcarpathian dialect so that it had loans from all the languages that replenish the dialect the sentence sounds artificial but it is still interesting for comprehending the phenomenon itself: Ya furt sobi robliu frigu iz svizhoi bryndzy bryndza is the milled sheep cheese (from Romanian) “furt” means “always” (from Czech) And Pavlo Chuchka has prepared for us an improvised newscast in dialects from various areas of Transcarpathia Petro Midianka also turns our attention to another aspect of the Transcarpathian dialect: when learning it attention is paid to the fact which words are borrowed and integrated into a certain literary basis – Today we may talk of certain leveling of the primary dialect that once existed Today it has become significantly literated – from mass-media This very process of literation was most dynamic in the Soviet period when the literation not only influenced the dialect but was totally Russifying it – the Shevchenko Award winner stresses – the risk of Russifying the Transcarpathian dialect exists still now Pavlo states that he can clearly see such efforts from certain politicized circles working on the subject: there is little systematical approach to researching Transcarpathian sub-dialects Just as there is little tendency to stick to certain conventionalism in the dialect it’s about Russian words that have never been in Ukrainian and other languages replenishing the Transcarpathian dialect I can see a systematic approach in other things: an effort to disroot from the Transcarpathian dialect elements of literary Ukrainian and substitute them with artificial non-typical lexemes Petro MIdianka confessed to us: there was a certain time he was yoked with not just a dialect but even thinking in the dialect: But as I was preparing to publishing my first collection of poetry I was even advised to live for some time in Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk Petro MIdianka insists on the key value of the dialect – it enriches any language: – Considering that the central and middle-Dnieper dialects of Ukrainian are much Russified Carpathian and Transcarpathian dialects are extremely important and useful for Ukrainian though not always in a simple and understandable way That’s why dialects should be fostered and preserved especially from artificial efforts to codify a dialect to the state of a literary language Pavlo Chuchka makes an accent on the fact that the Transcarpathian dialect is a part of the main touristic product in Transcarpathia thermal waters and so on; it’s another thing that people come here for makes one travel to various parts of the region And to make up a complete vision of Transcarpathia and comprehend it in full This is true not only for tourists but for locals as well the dialect also serves an identification function both within the country and the region; for Transcarpathians may easily recognize among them it is much easier for Transcarpathians to study Hungarian for they will already know from the very first lessons a few dozens of words from all of those foreign languages Even if it seems to you that you have never heard a Transcarpathian sub-dialect The dialect from Ukraine’s westernmost region sounds everywhere it is used by musicians from the bands Rock-H Hudaki Village Band (who have already performed twice on Europe’s biggest festival In April last year the whole country was amaze by the song “Bytanha” our title – Varosh – is one of the most universal words in Transcarpathian dialect borrowed from Hungarian but used throughout the whole region and not only in Hungarian habitats We just added a letter “h” to the Hungarian word város (meaning a town a city) and in this ways we created a unique title spelled by everybody the way it sounds in the Transcarpathian dialect we offer you to listen to a song similar to our title – “Se miy varosh” (That’s My Town) dialectisms are sound especially “tasty” Disclaimer: the present material is presented by the civic community of “Institute of Central European Strategy” with the support by US Agency for International Development (USAID) Creating the material became possible with sincere support from the American people as provided via US Agency for International Development (USAID) The contents or the material is a sole responsibility of the civic community of “Institute of Central European Strategy” and does not necessarily reflect opinion of USAID or USA government Reproduction and use of any part of this material in any format copying or using in any other way whatsoever is prohibited without a link to the original source Main photo: 1935 © SLUB / Walter Möbius