Ambasada Žiri

He was born on 2 December 1933 in the village of Pirok near Tetovo. He trained as a pastry chef, worked in Dubrovnik and Vrhnika, and in 1959 opened his own shop in Žiri. That was made possible by my father, who was mayor at the time. Out of gratitude the young man and his wife Razija came to visit and brought a gift: a whole cake! This was in years when even the mayor's family ate rather modestly. My mother wanted to return the kindness, so she sliced the only and the best thing in the house that day, a piece of delicious cured pork fat. The two guests sat in front of the platter, looked at it in alarm and did not touch this Carniolan delicacy. When they left, we hungry ones finished off both, first the pork fat and then the cake. In her good faith my mother simply did not know about the cultural difference between us and them, and realised her mistake only when it was too late …

Esad never held it against her. Nor did he hold it against the later town notables of Žiri, who would not let him build a new place in the centre. For thirty years they offered him various sites nearby, but he stayed put in rented premises in the old Matic house opposite the Cooperative Hall. Until, in 1995, he and his son Memet managed to build and open the new Ambasada on the very same spot, right in the centre! It is now home to their large family, the seat of the municipality and many other businesses.

And why Ambasada, the Embassy? Because almost everyone who came to Žiri or left it stopped at his patisserie. We met there, heard this and that, and agreed where to go and what to do next. Once Janko Smole walked in, then federal finance minister in the government of Milka Planinc, who had built his second home above Žiri. He went straight to the telephone in Esad's kitchen (up in Goropeke he did not have one yet) and made a call. Then from the kitchen came: “Milka, we got the loan!” And how many more such events and agreements there were, how much information was exchanged here before the information age.

So Esad was not just a pastry chef. He was also the long-serving president of the Žiri Tourist Association, and above all a man who was always “at your service”, in such a way that the favours he did far outnumbered those he received. He was not only the Ambassador, he was simply a good man. And that is how all of us who received his small but many and too little appreciated kindnesses will remember him.