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androids 
In Ka?telir, the Kovac family ? the village?s blacksmiths ? settled in the west of the village and the area became known as Kovaci or ?the blacksmiths? district? (Kovac is Croatian for blacksmith and ?i? is the plural). Most of the forges have long since gone (one metal worker still remains, making traditional railings for balconies, pergolas and fences), but the population hasn?t greatly changed. Today, many of the people living here are still related, having a Kovac somewhere in their family tree: for example, Valter?s mother was a Kovac and his grandfather, Mate Kovac, owned a large farmstead in Kovaci, which included our house.
Owned by the Kovac family since the village was founded, the farmstead sprawled across the hillside. As the family increased, more and more buildings appeared ? sons and daughters grew up, married and needed homes to start families. Often these started as animal barns: the young couple moved in above and, when the family grew, the animals moved out; the building became a home and the cycle started again.
As the buildings became family homes, walls appeared dividing the farmstead into individual plots. At some stage, a farm track ran through the middle of the farm, down the hill, in front of our house and joined the lower road next to the barn. All signs of this are long gone, and a wall and water cistern now lie across its path.
By the 1960s, the building boom was long past. All across Istria (like much of the Mediterranean), rural populations had plummeted: people had moved away to the city or emigrated to the New World. In some areas whole villages now stood empty and, while Ka?telir remained occupied, its population had dropped dramatically. Many houses were now abandoned or gradually fell empty as their ageing occupants died.
Gradually morphing over the years, our ?timeless? village of Kovaci has shifted from a thriving agricultural community to a village resort (although there is still plenty of farming around). Buildings have gone up, changed usage, fallen derelict and been reinvented. And like their buildings, the people of Kovaci have also changed. Many are new, incomers from foreign lands, but there remain a number who are Kovaci-born and bred. Like their forebears, they?re still farmers growing vines and olive trees, only now they drive tractors rather than oxen and their barns house tourists rather than animals!