Trenta

Aesontius, like Jason's father, in memory of the arrival here of the Argonauts, but also and above all, Isuns, Lisuns, Lisunç, Lisonz, Lusinz, Lusins, Sontig and Soča. Masculine and feminine, turquoise and emerald, of war and of extraordinary beauty, the Isonzo is certainly, along with the Nadiža, the main route of our journey. And here, in the legendary Trenta Valley, here where from the efforts of the South Tyrolean and Trentino migrants who arrived in the 16th century in search of iron and not finding enough of it, became shepherds, hunters and Alpine guides, the legend of the Zlatorog was born... Zlatorog, the white chamois with golden horns, set to defend a fabulous treasure from human greed, the treasure being the Triglav ecosystem itself... here where poverty has always been normality until the recent arrival of mass tourism which brought money, development and perhaps an end as bitter as that of the legend itself, here I sit on a stone and read again the writings of the poet from Muharram Bek, south-eastern outskirts of Alexandria: 

This is the Isonzo
and here I better 
recognized myself
as a docile fiber
of the universe

Then when the Chief of Staff of the Royal Italian Army, Armando Diaz, signs the famous victory bulletin, which is more or less at the same time as when the Commander of the Seventh Army of the Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal, decides to withdraw his men from Aleppo in front of the arrival of the British forces, the Italians will occupy Trenta, banning the use of the Slovenian language and begin to build barracks to control the border, which with the Treaty of Rapallo is officially set on the Isonzo-Sava watershed line. The fascist rhetoric will speak of the Vallo Alpino del Littorio, but it’s not clear how many of the men who arrived here to serve in the Border Guard had brought with them Giuseppe Ungaretti's Gay Shipwrecks. 

“It's a disaster, I tell you,” says Marko Pretner, head of the Visitors Center of the Triglav National Park, putting his hat back on before leaving the office: “billionaires from all over the world now come here, from Russia, from the United States. They buy houses at unreachable prices just to stay in them for one month a year... of course locals will earn some money from them, but if it continue like this, there won't be even a trace of our community left." It's dark outside now, Marko has to go because they're waiting for him for dinner. We say goodbye and I stay there standing for a few more moments, between the wall of the former barracks of the Royal Army and the field in front, immersed in darkness. When I turn on the torch, seven pairs of eyes respond to the appeal.