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Retired banker trades business suit for trowel on archaeological dig
Retired banker and history buff Tom Winarski, Gladwin, was looking for a different kind of travel experience, one that encompassed historical and cultural lessons.
 | | 'FAMOUS' MAYOR Tom Winarski (left), retired from Chase Bank, Houghton Lake, is interviewed by a Bulgarian television station while on an archaeological dig in Mezdra, Bulgaria. Winarski, who is serving his third term as mayor of Gladwin, was questioned about why an American mayor would be on such a trip and how he felt about eight Bulgarian nurses recently being released from a Libyan jail. "It was something totally unexpected," he said. (Courtesy photo) |
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Winarski, who retired from Chase Bank, Houghton Lake, in May, began his banking career in Gladwin in 1973. He has also been active in local government and politics in the Gladwin area, and is serving his third term as the mayor of Gladwin.
But soon after retiring from the bank, Winarski traded in his business suit for a trowel to pursue his interest in archeology and history.
"I wanted to put travel and my interest in history and archeology into a trip, particularly overseas," he said. In researching travel options, he came across the American Institute of Archeology on the Internet (www.archaeological.org) that lists programs worldwide. Travelers can participate as students, or as Winarski did, as a volunteer.
"It was something I always wanted to try," he said.
Denied his first choice dig on a medieval cemetery in Posen, Poland, because he had applied too late for acceptance, the next program that interested him was one in Bulgaria on a Roman fortification. Upon applying, he was accepted for a two-week program beginning in mid-July. The cost (excluding air fare) was $1,075 Euro, or about $1,400, which included room and board. Winarski found a travel agent who booked the airfare for $1,200, so the trip was about $2,600.
"My cost was a little more as I did some additional travel once the program finished," he said.
He incorporated a visit to relatives in Birzca, Poland, whom he had never met.
"So it was really a rewarding trip all the way around," he said.
Winarski's dig site was located in Mezdra, Bulgaria, about 100 km northeast of Sofia, Bulgaria's capital. He flew into Sofia a couple of days before the program started. The director of the program, Dr. Krassimira Luka, had arranged for staff members to meet Winarski's plane and transport him from the airport to the hotel where the program would be initiated.
"This gave me a couple of days to walk around Sofia and see some of the sights that were not going to be on the tour on Sunday," he said.
Winarski said Bulgaria is at the crossroads to Europe and Asia; the Greeks and Romans had to traverse Bulgaria to conquer the Middle East and the Turks passed through there on their way to conquer Europe in the Middle Ages.
He noted that in June another Thracian tomb was opened in Bulgaria where gold funeral masks were found, as well as other items that hadn't been taken by early grave robbers.
"One of our tour trips was to one of the museums that had some of those Thracian treasures," he said. "It always amazes me the intricate work that artisans could do over 2,000 years ago."
After touring some sights on Sunday, including some of the oldest churches in Bulgaria, Winarski's group boarded a bus for the hour-and-a-half trip to their hotel in Mezdra.
Winarski said Mezdra sits along a major route running from the northern Danube area south toward Turkey. The Iskar River crosses the roadway and made a suitable place for the early 1st and 2nd Century Romans to establish a fortification.
The hotel was near a hilltop outcropping upon which the Romans built their fort.
"We were very fortunate that the hotel was only about a year old," he said, "and with only 10 rooms, would be our home for two weeks."
The day of the first dig began with a ride to a site just northwest of Vastra, about 30 km from Mezdra. It was the site of another Roman fortification that guarded a narrow pass between two mountains. The site being excavated was about 300 feet above the roadbed and up a 60-degree incline.
"I was thankful that this wasn't our site to excavate, as I and my college participants were exhausted from the climb," Winarski said. "While we were there, one of the Bulgarian staff found a silver button with a medal detector in the excavation. A great sign that this was going to be a good trip."
After touring a nearby museum that held some of the artifacts found on prior excavations, the group headed to the work site, located just on the outskirts of Mezdra, overlooking the town. It was high upon a bluff overlooking the river and, judging from the number of walls outlining the occupied area, it had been used for a number of years. The Bulgarian Archeological Association that was running the dig had worked there for three summers prior and had found a number of pottery shards and Roman coins to date the occupation of the site.
"My colleagues, Catherine Seed from England, and Jeb Hagan from Dallas, TX, were anxious to get started," Winarski said. "Bright and early Tuesday morning we were given our putty knives, blue trowel and paint brush and became archeological students."
They were given the task of removing a 10 cm layer from in front of a wall excavation. The Roman wall fortification was actually about eight feet above their heads, and they were informed that the layer they were working on was from the Neolithic period, or up to 30,000 years old.
"While using a trowel and putty knife to scrape away at about two inches of hard packed dirt doesn't sound exciting, just wait until you uncover one of the three most found objects: Rock, pottery or bone," Winarski said. "Not that rock can't be exciting- it was the pottery shards and bone fragments that made our day. At this site, I did find a flint knife that our instructors became excited [about] as it was the first found at the site, and showed that the site traded with other areas, as the flint was not native to the site."
One man on the trip who had been on a previous dig said he hadn't found anything, but the group Winarski was with found either rock, pottery or bone.
"Any time you find something that somebody had used 10, 15, 20 thousand years ago, that's a find," he said. "It's sort of like the Indiana Jones syndrome, finding buried gold."
Winarski may not be a famous archaeologist, but he did cause a little stir during the dig.
"When the local Mezdra television station came to do a spot on the find, they found out that I was a mayor from America and wanted to do a live interview on their station," he said. "I agreed and wound up fielding questions, not only on why I was there, but also my views on such things as the Bulgarian nurses just being released after eight years in a Libyan jail...I had heard about it on a CNN program, so it didn't take me by surprise. I think the reporter was trying to catch me off guard."
The interview was "totally unexpected," he said, adding the Bulgarians couldn't understand why a mayor was on an archaeological dig.
Winarski ended up meeting with the Mezdra mayor, and discussed how he handled his job.
"Unfortunately for my colleagues, they had to sit there and listen to us chat," he said. "The next day, Bulgarian national television came and did a five-minute spot. [I got] more press in Bulgaria than I have ever gotten at home."
The second dig site was on top of the hill, overlooking the river. Again, the Roman layer had already been gone through and the group was finding pottery and bone from the Neolithic period. Winarski found the process interesting.
"Once we took a 10 cm layer off, recovering the artifacts from that section, we had to chart any rocks we found, both horizontally and vertically, before we could move on to the next layer. The shards from each layer were washed, marked and coded with the date, section, site and depth of find," he said. "Most are not reassembled into pottery as the instructor indicated that you rarely find a whole vessel or pieces. The number of shards was used to determine how active the site was at that level."
Digging went on from 8 to about 11:30 a.m. and then the group went to what they came to call the "bone building" from 5 to 7 p.m. where the day's finds were washed, marked and cataloged.
"Did I say that all of this was during the hottest heat wave to hit Bulgaria in 100 years?" Winarski asked. "We had almost a week of the temperature being between 40- 45 degrees centigrade, or 113 degrees. I learned how to drink water."
By drinking bottled water, he didn't get sick, he said, but, "I'd much rather have a diet Coke."
He did try local foods, like breakfast rolls and bosa, a soy milk drink, something that is better suited to pregnant women.
"But I'll tell you it wasn't a good drink for a 61-year-old man," he said.
The coffee there is "real strong," he said, adding there are no free refills, and you have to ask for ice in your drink.
"I ate lots of tomatoes and cucumbers," he said. "I lost 10 pounds on the trip."
The hotel they were staying at had a pool, so from noon to 4:30 p.m., Winarski was in the pool. "On the 113-degree day, I counted over 125 people around the pool."
The weekend consisted of a trip to the Ledinika Cave (a cool 50 degrees), and to Belgradocik, where another Roman fortress was located in "some spectacular countryside," Winarski said, "with tremendous rock formations, only about 20 km from the Serbian border."
The group visited a cave at Malpas that was more than 1,500 meters long and contained a number of cave paintings from the Neolithic period.
"Believe me, I didn't complain about the 50-degree temperature in the cave," he said.
An interpreter was assigned for the entire trip, Winarski said, adding he learned a lot about the Bulgarian culture, politics, economy, and history.
"Our Bulgarian interpreter seemed to indicate that Bulgaria was first in a lot of things, and we had an hour and half discussion over the Slavic language," he said.
Winarski noticed that it seemed that all Bulgarians smoke "like fiends."
"That may change in January, as a steep tax increase will hit cigarettes and alcohol as Bulgarian changes to a European Union country," he said.
Winarski said he was never in danger in Bulgaria, but the members of the group were warned about pick-pockets at railroad stations and airports. He advised travelers use common sense.
The most frustrating part of the trip, he said, was the seven-hour time difference to home. He once made the mistake of calling his wife, Linda, at 5:30 a.m., and the first phone card he purchased didn't last much longer than his answering machine message at home.
"It was an enjoyable experience, even given the heat wave, made possible by the program set up by the Bulgarian Archeological Association," Winarski said. "The trip met all my expectations and more, and to me, was made enjoyable by the learning experience I had."
He suggests that if you're looking for something different, and have an interest in history, you might find being an amateur archeologist to your liking.
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