OsmizaOsmizaOsmiza

Osmiza.

What to do in a cloudy, depressing day? The first suggestion i got from a friend hit me deep in the heart. Osmiza.

“Osmiza is a special licence once issued by the Austro-Hungarian empire to farmers, who, for a maximum of eight days (osem in Slovenian) could sell their produce without actually becoming a business concern (and thereby avoiding substantial fiscal pressure).”[...]

“The Karst is known for its »osmice« where farmers open their doors and serve their homegrown food and wine for one week every year. To find an osmica you just have to follow the hand made wooden signs (with the village name on it and a branch hanging from it) at each junction which indicate where an osmica is taking place.
The tradition of osmice in Primorska date back to the Habsburg Empire under Maria Teresa’s reign. Traditional osmicas were very different from osmicas of today.”[...]

“Il Carso, the mountainous region on the Italian-Slovenian border, provides us not only with prosecco, but also an example of the value of local languages. In the dialetto carsico, which I am informed is possibly the ‘weirdest dialect in the world’, words like osmiza have evolved which describe very particular expressions of culture. (An osmiza is a farmhouse, where wine or grappa is made, and every now and then is transformed into a bar.)” [...](Cambridge World Oral Literature Project)

I searched the net for a good article explaining the Osmiza Concept to you my dear britons but all i could find where cold dictionary-like definition. Osmiza is something more like a state of mind, a safe place to rest, a no man’s land in everyday’s struggle.  I could find just one good article that could explain things in the language they where ment to be lived, but you have to be fluent in italian.
If you are, i  suggest you read this article by Sigrid, a eno-photo blogger that actually works in the eno-photo field

From Colludrozza's Osmiza