parastos (maturski parastos)

(Translation, Yugoslavia)

Parastos is actually a service for the dead, held in a chapel or sung by the priest during a funeral. Maturski parastos is what we called our high school reunions.

There are at least two kinds of this. The big ones, every five years (starting with ten, though, because at the first five we were still not so nostalgic for each other's company and mostly still students, very few graduate in just four years), take all day, usually late may or early june. In the morning we gather at the city theatre or other such venue, where there's some kind of show - the choir from gimnazija is engaged, perhaps some actors, the current principal of the school makes a little speech, and so does the selected one among us. Initially our school was doing it alone, but at some point (35 years?) we started pulling all three such schools' alumni together, so we can fill such places.

Then we go to our classrooms. The logbooks are already taken from the city archives, and a pro forma class is held by any surviving professors - the original classmaster first, then when he died Radoje took over, and then Sonja.

That finishes around the lunchtime. The out-of-towners either sit somewhere and keep drinking until the evening, or just find some place to rest (happens much more after the 20 year mark). In the evening, we gather at the selected place (first time it was Lala, the fancy restaurant of the eighties; at 15 it was pivnica; at 20 I don't even remember if I was there; nowadays it's the hotel again).

The other kind is the class reunion. The IV₄ started it the earliest, while they were still mostly students. They may have had some periods of doubt, but resumed after skipping not too many years, by going somewhere out at around noon and returning in the evening. Several years that was on a river yacht, making about a 100km tour of rivers and canals.

My IV_5pp did a couple of winter evening ones, in january, in the early eighties, but it didn't stick - did it perhaps 4-5 times. I remember one in The Hole (hotel basement restaurant). Then, while we were in the US, they organized again and started doing all day events at someone's garden - first at Bajče's on Babatovo, then when he died, at our place in Čankovo. Generally we skip this on the 5 year events - we do them in september, so the time between would be just a couple of months.

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Mentions: 22-III-1970., 27-X-1970., and the following few days, 01-IX-1971., 17-XI-1972., 20-I-1973., 29-X-1973., 24-IX-1974., 13-VII-1981., 09-VI-1984., Ten years reunion, january 1985., 29-XII-1988., june 1989., 17-V-1990., 20-VI-1994., 19-IX-1994., december 1996., 13-XII-1997., 05-XII-1998., 16-V-2004., 27-V-2004., 04-VII-2009., 11-IX-2010., 13-VIII-2012., 15-IX-2012., 13-VII-2013., 14-IX-2013., 25-XII-2013., 27-II-2014., 25-III-2014., 21-IV-2014., 22-V-2014., 31-V-2014., 05-VII-2014., 02-IX-2014., 13-X-2014., Blackmailed by the google, 29-VIII-2015., 29-VII-2016., 03-IX-2016., 10-IX-2016., 29-VIII-2017., 09-IX-2017., 16-IX-2017., 15-IX-2018., 09-V-2019., 25-V-2019., 14-IX-2019., 21-IX-2019., 28-VII-2020., 12-IX-2020., 18-I-2021., 01-IX-2021., 18-IX-2021., The other annual party, 20-XI-2021., Walnut, gone, 05-V-2022., 11-V-2022., 29-V-2022., 03-VI-2022., 09-VII-2022., 12-VIII-2022., 19-VIII-2022., 10-IX-2022., 25-IX-2022., 17-X-2022., 13-IV-2023., 06-V-2023., 07-VI-2023., 09-IX-2023., 01-XI-2023., 25-I-2024., 05-II-2024., 16-II-2024., 24-III-2024., 14-V-2024., 26-V-2024., 08-VI-2024., Biljana Grgurević, Borivoj Pragović (Bora), Branislav Bačikin (Bajče), Cvetana Mladović, Čankovo, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), frendz parti, gimnazija, Gradivoj Sredljev (Sredljak), gugolj, Ivanka Stojančev, IV₄, IV_5pp, Jovan Zdanić (Jozda), Ksenija, Merima Tabarski (Mima), Milica Erceški, pivnica, Radoje Maletin, Sofija Letin, Sonja Savković, Spasenija Višnjić (Pasa), Višnja Lazin, Vlada Markanić, Živana Armatović (Žuca), Živko Mjedenica (Mjedac), in serbian

13-XI-2019 - 30-XI-2023