I met the Mayor of Ptuj

This was one of those once in a lifetime opportunities. While we were all in Venice last Friday, Danilo (Gregor’s father) told me he would like me to meet the Mayor of Ptuj. So yesterday, Danilo called the Mayor on his cell phone to arrange a meeting for today. The Mayor actually blocked time out of his busy schedule to meet with me! How cool is that?

We all walked into the Mayor’s office where he was standing near the door to greet me. We shook hands and he welcomed me into his office. We all sat down at this huge meeting table he had in his office. We made some small talk for awhile. He asked me what I thought of Slovenia and what I thought of Ptuj. I told him that I thought Slovenia was a wonderful country. I also mentioned how much I enjoyed the Ptujski Grad (Castle of Ptuj). He was smiling while I was telling him all of this. He was also curious about what I do for a living in the United States. He told me that he could understand English, which was very apparent that he could, but he could only speak a few words. It was only 3 years ago and he couldn’t speak any English.

After making small talk, the Mayor wanted to take some photos with me, and also with Gregor and Vesna. The first photo we took together was one of those political photos where we are shaking hands when the picture was taken. After the photos, the Mayor a Ptuj presented me a gift from the city. In this bag contained a t-shirt of Ptuj, a hat, a bottle of some of the finest Slovenian white wine, a map of Ptuj, some postcards of Ptuj, and a book explaining the history of a Kurent. The cool thing about the book is that it is in English and Slovenian. The book also has a seal of the Mayor with his signature inside the front cover. Mayor Štefan Čelan is a wonderful man. We exchanged business cards and he told me to email him sometime.

Mayor Štefan Čelan is currently serving his third year of his first term. He has his Ph.D. in Chemistry. Before serving in the public sector, the Mayor was a Director of the Scientific Research Center Bistra Ptuj. Every year, Slovenians in Ptuj celebrate Kurentovanje. The Kurentovanje is a 10-day long festival where certain people wear these special masks and go town to town making noise. The purpose of the noise is to scare off evil spirits and the cold winter. One other little fact is that Mayor Štefan Čelan is also a Kurent. This means he is one of the people going from town to town wearing the ceremonial sheep skin masks and costumes to scare off the evil spirits and cold winters so that the farmers of Slovenia may have a more fertile crop for their farms.

I couldn’t thank him enough for his generous gifts that he presented me with and also his warming welcome. I told him on numerous occasions how much I greatly appreciated him giving me the opportunity to meet him and also to have a picture taken with him. The whole experience was amazing and surely something I will not forget.

Some other photos that were taken can be found here or by clicking on the image of the Mayor and I.