Balkan Summer

High summer in the Balkans and travel writer George East visits a remote Bulgarian mountain village to investigate an apparently potty project set up by an English artist and her husband. The scheme is to save the dying village of Krasiva by forming a colony of creative foreigners. If all goes to plan, potters, painters and writers will buy a home in the village and bring new life to a community where the average age is over 70 and there are more donkeys than people. In his time in Bulgaria, the famously sceptical observer finds himself falling under the spell of a fascinating land where the old ways are followed and a cottage can be bought with a credit card... Extract: I thought Ivalin was reckless when speeding through the village, but off-road he drives faster and, if it were possible, even more recklessly. The potholed tarmac has been replaced by a sun-baked dirt track, riven with deep tractor ruts. It also winds sharply, and slopes alarming steeply downhill into the valley. Before we left, Ivalin told me that his raspberry fields are in secret locations and I jokingly asked if I would need to wear a blindfold. Now I wish I had.