Featured A silver tone ethnic necklace, please help

I had a friend at school in the late 60s and early 70s, Polish background like so many Londoners. They used to somehow visit family in Poland. Suitcases full of jeans and M&S clothes. None of that ever came back again.

I'd forgotten till now that my grandparents holidayed in Bulgaria in the 60s.

Ah, skirt lengths. Rolling them up over a belt!

 

Ours was just a tiny bit compared to yours of course. We lived in a free country, no threat of being perscuted over nothing.

The uniform was too hot in summer though (heat rash from synthetic junk), and too cold in winter.
We lived in Sydney, and the school governors were convinced that Sydney was always warm, even in winter. There was no heating at school and we sat there with plaids and gloves. You could always tell when something was written in winter, glove-writing instead of handwriting.

 

Sure it was (a tiny bit).

On the good side, our uniforms were made of cotton and there was district heating at school in the winter. Cheap USSR resources, you know. It has always been the cheese in the trap Except that we had no choice but eat it. I doubt that I would choose it if I had an opportunity to choose.

Glove-writing must be remarkable, you should keep samples fo posterity

 

You friend must have been a favourite among the Poles they visited. It was a rear treasure to have someone bringing you blue jeans and Western style clothes. And cream chocolate Nuttela - I adored it but it could be found only in those special shops where one could buy only with US dollars. You might have heard of them.

There were a couple of nice places along the Black Sea, forbidden for the ordinary Bulgarians, reserved for foreigners paying in Western currencies and for high ranking communists. And rather cheep for the Western standard so I guess it was a good deal for your grandparents.

Ownedbybear, spot it! We used to do the same which means that certain things are just universal regardless of class or society

P.S. It took me some time to get the meaning of your last sentence, English is not my mother tongue so I beg your pardon. Also if it sounds strange or obsolete, it was long ago when I studied it.

 

Eyebrows were not an issue for us but skirt length was. I remember knelling so your hem could be measured. We lived in Libya in the late 60's when Gadhafi took over. Lots of forbidden items .

 

I so enjoy the "chat" between members. I have been a member for just shy of 3 years yet I am beginning to know the personalities of the active members. Sometimes I wish I had a picture of them and knew more about their backgrounds. But on the other hand it keeps the "mystic" going. Much information was passed along on this one thread.

 

' a lot of these items came through the 1960s Hippie Trail between W Europe and India and Nepal...'
'The Hippie Trail also passed through Bulgaria, so who knows, maybe a hungry Hippie had to sell some necklaces for food and lodgings.'
AJ-Where did You find that map of 'The Hippie Trail' ? I knew scores of folks from my hometown (about an hour north of San Francisco) who did the HT Pilgrimage.
PS-You know I've never googled the term before.Ancients paths-The Silk Road,The Underground Railroad,The Oregon Trail,and now the Hippie Trail.
PS-The 'proto' hippies didn't have very long hair,a few beads and a Beatle cut maybe.

 

Plain white t-shirts were against our high schools dress code (too hoodlum/Fonzie-like),and your hair couldn't touch the back collar of your long sleeve shirt.
This wasn't Bulgaria or Albania-this was friggin' California.
Solution-I bought several colored t-shirts and those were OK,but mine also had the small Zig-Zag man logo on them-the teachers didn't know what cigarette rolling papers were used for back then !

 

QUOTE-Lark, post:I so enjoy the "chat" between members,been a member for just shy of 3 years yet I am beginning to know the personalities of the active members.
Me too Lark-Many of these folks have been friends for almost 15 years and know each others 'back stories' well.They've been thru life and death,joy and pain together.

 

When we lived in Turkey from 1962-1966, US military strongly discouraged any military personnel from leaving the base due to the Hashish trail (Hippie trail?) running through Turkey. If you got caught , you went to jail and they threw away the key. We were not military (oil) so we lived in Ankara but i went to the US Airforce school so none of my school friends could come over to my house.

 

I think it is from a Wiki page.
I noticed they didn't include a detour to Tashkent btw. Currently independent Uzbekistan, but then USSR, and another favourite of Hippies. I remember many Dutch youngsters went there back in the day.

Absolutely. What is that movie again Midnight something? Of an American in a Turkish jail?

 

midnight Expess...........scared the crap out of me.......hard to watch....great movie.

 

Never did get to see it. Always wanted to. Spent all but 10 years of my life with out TV.

 

Great movie-the main actor seemed to fade away (or perhaps died young ?)

 

Midnight Express was shown also in BG - to show us how the "dirty capitalists" in Turkey behave towards the "dirty capitalists" from USA. So that we know how safe we are in our "socialist heaven" . Although I am pretty sure the same happened in our prison, too.

wiki says Brad Davis, died in 1991
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Davis_(actor)

Guys, you make me feel almost like you , I thought it was only in the communist world. Turns out that things were not so different in the West regarding uniforms and short skirts, and haircuts. Well, not counting Libya, I had a friend living there who had told me things about it.

Hippies were shown on the news and in films here only as drug addicts and unhappy outcasts to prove the terrible social conditions in the capitalist world. Much later I realised that they had had their own cultural heritage. Never met a living Hippie in my life, quite happy to have a Hippie item, as Any suggests.

B.t.w., the film Hair was also shown here with the same propaganda purpose but the effect was that we fell in love with the soundtrack

So USSR like us was making the most of hard currency holders I guess this was the reason to allow Hippies in the communist world - Hippies or not, they all pay in dollars.

 

Guys, you make me feel almost like you...............


Do u not like the smell of fresh flowers....

Do you not like to put on freshly washed clothes....

Do you not like a cold drink , on a hot summers day....

Do you hate injustice .....

Do you love a Childs laugh......

Do you wish for health and happiness for all your friends & family....

You are like us...in more ways than you can imagine.......we are all like each other,
in the things that matter !!

 

komokwa, absolutely agree! In spite if the different background, we are all humans, after all.

 

Neary all were, except Albania, GDR, China, North Korea. I can't think of any others, but there may have been.
China opened up before GDR and Albania did. North Korea is still under lock and key.

 

Most of my Hippie friends died young or had tragic lives. My best friend from Turkey joined the "Guru" in a commune . She wanted me to come teach there when I got my teaching degree. She is still involved in similar causes but did learn that the commune was not such a great idea.