Degradation is a long and painful process, and the fight against it should be doubly harsh

write, Nikola Kukunes

Degradation is a long and painful process, and the fight against it should be doubly harsh. I thought we were more tame, but it turned out that apathy and passivity take their toll. The inspiration for such thinking was prompted by a forgotten text, in which I have co-authored, and dates from 2008/2009 year.
If it bothers you what my loved ones and I have been thinking about then, welcome:

Nostalgia is a feeling that is activated the moment we lose something, we will move away from somewhere, from someone or from something. At the moment we are preparing this short description of our emotion, such is the pain we are in. It is on the basis of this mood that we will try to take away a moment from your short-livedness and ask for understanding and support..
A group of enthusiasts, sports workers, former swimmers and water polo players, carried away by the memories of a better past, trying to find a solution how to revive the swimming pool and indoor pool. From the very beginning, we would like to emphasize that the only goal and motivation for such activation of the citizens is the need for a place where healthy individuals develop - both in body and spirit., where ethnicities and denominations meet and function. That there is a struggle there, there would be and it would be nice to have her, but not on the street, in schoolyards, in cafes. The only fight that the people of Struga are used to is the fight on the sports fields.
With the dictionary of the family hierarchy, the Swimming and Water Polo Club from Struga can be the grandfather of the Republic of Macedonia, because in parallel with the coming of age of the state, the club entered its seventh decade. We make this effort with a bias and nostalgia for a value that fades, to preserve at least something that has left its mark over time. In the last ten years, the club has been continuously collapsing due to the misfortune of swimmers, to those who have just become swimmers and to those who have yet to be. In Struga, the attitude towards sports is deeply rooted, so we do not need any campaign for a healthy life and how to take young people away from vices. We need sports facilities that are falling apart in front of our eyes. Struga is a small municipality and may not have enough funds for that. Macedonia is also small, maybe she can't cover the maintenance either, but that will not stop us from going any further. We do not want to be silent witnesses of sports degradation, especially to swimming and water polo.
The club that started to exist in the middle of the XX century, was a spontaneous association of motivated enthusiasts, above all from the physical challenge. Six fishermen, a craftsman and a high school student form the club, which in the coming decades will declare top swimmers and water polo players. Due to the achieved results, they were enabled to receive basic training conditions. First the open swimming pool, and later closed 25m. pool. With this engagement of the environment, the first results of the national and international competitions begin to arrive.
Today, when the results of decades of fruitful work will be summarized and we will see the gallery of deserving citizens who have contributed to the club, we can not fail to notice that it was membership that influenced them to grow into individuals with impeccable physical, cultural and social education. Subjects taught in school desks, but are practiced outside of them. Praise and pride is the recognition that the club 22 for years he was the champion of Macedonia, he regularly participated in major Balkan and European competitions, and water polo players competed in the super strong II Yugoslav League.
The questions we face and try to answer are: How the work of the club was financed? Who participated with donations and sponsorships? Why minimal activity is not possible today? Why there is a lack of interest on the part of city officials? Why the state is ready to invest in the construction of new swimming pools, where there is no swimming tradition, and there is no hearing on the rehabilitation of the existing one in Struga? Why Struga residents are prevented or prevented from using one of the rare ways of unification? Why all the things we had in common as a value from the past, today, persistently neglected and destroyed? It is difficult for us to distance ourselves from the politics that deeply affects the issues of sports and sports life.
Because of all this we are looking for unreserved support for the revitalization of the swimming pool and the pool, symbols with which Struga residents will continue to be able to defy sports, to be proud and rejoice in new successes.

P.S.. If I knew what the city would turn out to be, I would not be wasting energy and time raising awareness. Even then I would collect my rags and go as far as possible from this place. I will not point fingers at the culprits. Small souls should be silenced from now on. That way they will be forgotten faster.