I’ve painted Croatia in a fairly positive light I believe but the two women also revealed the areas in which Croatia is struggling namely with the economy, the worldwide struggle. Their unemployment figures are very high, they said officially 14% but unofficially probably around 20 or 25%. At the same time the black market is thriving, taxes are high, and 70,000 are not getting their daily salary or pension. Those 70,000 are apart of the unorganized sector of workers who have no job security and could be fired anytime because their employers didn’t register them. The women said 72% of employers don’t properly record and therefore pay their employees which was suspiciously high to me. How would you even find out that figure? Regardless it’s unquestionably a grave problem if people aren’t paid and don’t have job security. The average salary per month is around 700 euros but they said that number is extremely skewed from the highest earners and that the average is closer to 300 euros per month. Serbia’s official and skewed average is 30,000 dinars (300 euros) per month but most earn between 10,000 and 20,000 dinars (100-200 euros).
The current president is Josipovic and he’s been the president for about a year and a half. Both women and Ceca praised him claiming he’s moderate and willing to compromise and they said he has an 80% popularity rating which is remarkable. The other government officials sound less promising and are tangled in a web of corruption according to the women. Still an honest president is a really good start.
Serbia and Croatia are the same in terms of social justice, unemployment, corruption, and human rights but Croatia’s EU ascension is much further along. Why?
C is clearer with their national identity,
C glorifies war veterans,
C has unanimous public story of the ’91 war which they’re proud of,
C is more stable with a simpler government (according to the two women),
C is composed of only Catholic Croats—side: one man told us you can’t get a birth certificate in Croatia without being baptized—no other religions create tension amongst the people,
C does not have problems with Kosovo,
C does not have a Roma population or other minority groups. There are hardly any Roma in Croatia according to the two Croatian women I’ve been referencing. In Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, there is one small Roma settlement. In Split there is a single Roma family and they are a “local legend.” Both women knew that the father is a fisherman and they debated whether his son left for Zagreb or remained in Split. Neither felt like Croats treat them poorly.
I apologize if these have grammar or spelling errors. I've posted them without proofreading! We don't have internet in the convent where we're staying and the internet at this cafe isn't strong enough to operate the image uploader but at some point I will be posting many many pictures for your viewing pleasure from the last three weeks. Signing off from the boardwalk of Split, Croatia. I am sooo glad it's shorts weather again!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Criminals of war
Goodness there’s so much to report about Croatia, ok next is war criminals. First a very brief explanation for the Balkan wars in the 1990s: Tito’s “brotherhood and unity” claimed they were all the same and he pushed identity issues under the carpet. Previously divided nations had to mix—most of which was in Bosnia which is still visible today—and after Yugoslavia broke up the cultural tensions within and between the countries turned into a decade of conflict and continued strained relations.
After the wars of the ‘90s Croats had the easiest and most successful time of regaining nationalism. For EU ascension this worked in their favor because it accelerated their recovery from the breakup of Yugoslavia and from the Balkan wars following that disintegration. People have said this is primarily due to the fact that Croatia after the war with Serbia in 1991 became home of the Croats practically exclusively. Serbia and Bosnia on the other hand have so many minority groups and such a mix of cultures that the national identity is weaker. Similarly many Serbs and Bosnians are Yugo-nostalgic while most Croats tend not to look so fondly to “brotherhood and unity” (Tito’s principal tenet when ruling Yugoslavia). There’s more nationalism in Croatia than in Serbia so understandably Croats have a different attitude towards their war criminals than the Serbs do. War criminals on both sides came out of ethnic cleansing done in each country in 1995 as a part of Operation Storm. Later in the ‘90s Serbia sued Croatia for the genocide inflicted on many by Croats and Croats shot back suing Serbia on the same account. Croatia’s democratic president Iva Josipavic and Serbia’s Tadic officially apologized to each other less than a year ago which is telling for the pace of this dispute. Since the ’91 war these criminals and veterans have been treated as heroes in Croatia. They call them domo ljubi, directly translated as state lovers but more like state protectors/supporters, and are the best-treated war veterans/criminals in the whole region because they are thought of as protectors of the state. In Serbia veterans and war criminals are treated as traitors for losing the war. For Serbs everything from the ‘90s has Milosevic’s fingerprints and it’s difficult for Serbs to be proud of the dealings of that man.
I don’t mean to imply that Serbia has no national pride, in fact select Serb hooligans have too much pride and they expressed their nationalist sentiments by wrecking havoc at Belgrade’s second Gay Pride Parade and at a few football matches last fall. Croatia has similar groups and during WWII the Ustaše were a group of fascist jingoists who focused their hate on the Roma, Serb, and Jewish populations during WWII. They have since been disbanded but their flag still hangs in the Gotovina’s hometown which shows the conservative nature of many.
Before February 2011 the Hague International Court of Justice had only sentenced Serb war criminals to prison, the Croats tried received no jail time. However just a couple months ago two out of three Croat war criminals were given a combined sentence of forty years, the third got off scot-free. I had heard and read that Croats were enraged at these sentences but the Serbs I was surrounded by called it more than just as their war criminals have been punished for years. One of the first things I saw walking around Split, Croatia was graffiti saying “Gotovina heroj.” Gotovina is one of the two sentenced who people regard as a hero. To honor Gotovina Croats wanted to name the main square in Split after him and he, Gotovina, was wise and refused because he knows Serbs wouldn’t ever step foot in that plaza let alone recognize the name change.
After the wars of the ‘90s Croats had the easiest and most successful time of regaining nationalism. For EU ascension this worked in their favor because it accelerated their recovery from the breakup of Yugoslavia and from the Balkan wars following that disintegration. People have said this is primarily due to the fact that Croatia after the war with Serbia in 1991 became home of the Croats practically exclusively. Serbia and Bosnia on the other hand have so many minority groups and such a mix of cultures that the national identity is weaker. Similarly many Serbs and Bosnians are Yugo-nostalgic while most Croats tend not to look so fondly to “brotherhood and unity” (Tito’s principal tenet when ruling Yugoslavia). There’s more nationalism in Croatia than in Serbia so understandably Croats have a different attitude towards their war criminals than the Serbs do. War criminals on both sides came out of ethnic cleansing done in each country in 1995 as a part of Operation Storm. Later in the ‘90s Serbia sued Croatia for the genocide inflicted on many by Croats and Croats shot back suing Serbia on the same account. Croatia’s democratic president Iva Josipavic and Serbia’s Tadic officially apologized to each other less than a year ago which is telling for the pace of this dispute. Since the ’91 war these criminals and veterans have been treated as heroes in Croatia. They call them domo ljubi, directly translated as state lovers but more like state protectors/supporters, and are the best-treated war veterans/criminals in the whole region because they are thought of as protectors of the state. In Serbia veterans and war criminals are treated as traitors for losing the war. For Serbs everything from the ‘90s has Milosevic’s fingerprints and it’s difficult for Serbs to be proud of the dealings of that man.
I don’t mean to imply that Serbia has no national pride, in fact select Serb hooligans have too much pride and they expressed their nationalist sentiments by wrecking havoc at Belgrade’s second Gay Pride Parade and at a few football matches last fall. Croatia has similar groups and during WWII the Ustaše were a group of fascist jingoists who focused their hate on the Roma, Serb, and Jewish populations during WWII. They have since been disbanded but their flag still hangs in the Gotovina’s hometown which shows the conservative nature of many.
Before February 2011 the Hague International Court of Justice had only sentenced Serb war criminals to prison, the Croats tried received no jail time. However just a couple months ago two out of three Croat war criminals were given a combined sentence of forty years, the third got off scot-free. I had heard and read that Croats were enraged at these sentences but the Serbs I was surrounded by called it more than just as their war criminals have been punished for years. One of the first things I saw walking around Split, Croatia was graffiti saying “Gotovina heroj.” Gotovina is one of the two sentenced who people regard as a hero. To honor Gotovina Croats wanted to name the main square in Split after him and he, Gotovina, was wise and refused because he knows Serbs wouldn’t ever step foot in that plaza let alone recognize the name change.
Croatian Information
Very basic info: There are about 4.5 million people in Croatia. Zagreb is the capital and there are around 1 million inhabitants. 450,000 people live in Dalmatia, a region with 21 counties in which Split is the central city.
There have been abiding tensions between Serbia and Croatia since the break up of Yugoslavia in ’89 and, like many strained relations, it’s been passed down through generations. For instance we’ve heard 10-year-old Serbs claim that all Croats are gay. When Mima, my host sister in Novi Sad, asked her parents why they go to the beach in Greece every summer instead of Croatia my very open-minded host parents told her that people in Greece are nicer than people in Croatia. My host parents said they cannot read signs or understand the language in Greece whereas they would have no trouble communicating in Croatia since Serbian and Croatian are practically the same language. Greece is much further away and they admit that Croatia is prettier but they refuse to even consider going to Croatia.
The big talk in Croatia now is surprise surprise European Union ascension. We talked to two women who run a women’s NGO in Split and one of them said the government announced last week that Croatian EU ascension will be finalized next month. Following that declaration France stepped forward and said for two years they will monitor Croatia, primarily whether the government follows through on certain agreements, and if those two years go swimmingly as everyone expects them to, Croatia will become a EU member state. However if the course doesn’t run smoothly France threatened with sanctions. This might seem persnickety on France’s part but the EU has become wary of Eastern European countries ascending because of the not so successful Bulgaria and Romania member states.
The same women who talked to us about the EU status are in charge of Croatia’s first Gay Pride Parade to be held on June 11th. The women said they’re planning on marching from the city center to the shore and that they have a good relationship with the police so they aren’t worried. Ceca, our program director, on the other hand gave some good reasons to be anxious. First of all we were in the middle of a hate crime just a week ago in Montenegro and the atrocities of that evening caused Montenegro’s first Pride to be cancelled. Montenegro is known as the least sensitized to LGBT through the Balkans, but none of the countries are particularly open to LGBT. Split, the city we’re in and where Pride is scheduled, has a history of being conservative tracing back to the Croatian-Serbian war in 1991. After the war a ton of Serbs who’d been living in Croatia, or Yugoslavia as it was just two years prior, we’re virtually exiled to Serbia because of the animosity between Serbs and Croats. (The same happened for Croatians in Serbia; through all of Eastern Europe’s history I’ve learned time and time again that there’s never a single story or truth.) According to Ceca there was a huge population of Serbs, especially in Split and Zagreb, the capital, and when those Serbs left Croats from the villages scrambled to occupy the cities. These village-Croats, however, hadn’t had much exposure to the notion of human rights so they were more conservative than the others which held the rest of the population back from addressing or sensitizing themselves to these issues. The same thing happened in many regions of the Balkans and some countries also faced sanctions and harsh codes of law in the ’90s further cutting them off from any human rights movements in the West. On top of this conservativism are strong ties of Croats to the Catholic church. Serbs have their own interdependence with the Orthodox church. Montenegro doesn’t have as many religious adherents and they are they least accepting to the LGBT population. Between conservativism and Catholism Ceca is apprehensive about the outcome of Croatia’s Pride.
There have been abiding tensions between Serbia and Croatia since the break up of Yugoslavia in ’89 and, like many strained relations, it’s been passed down through generations. For instance we’ve heard 10-year-old Serbs claim that all Croats are gay. When Mima, my host sister in Novi Sad, asked her parents why they go to the beach in Greece every summer instead of Croatia my very open-minded host parents told her that people in Greece are nicer than people in Croatia. My host parents said they cannot read signs or understand the language in Greece whereas they would have no trouble communicating in Croatia since Serbian and Croatian are practically the same language. Greece is much further away and they admit that Croatia is prettier but they refuse to even consider going to Croatia.
The big talk in Croatia now is surprise surprise European Union ascension. We talked to two women who run a women’s NGO in Split and one of them said the government announced last week that Croatian EU ascension will be finalized next month. Following that declaration France stepped forward and said for two years they will monitor Croatia, primarily whether the government follows through on certain agreements, and if those two years go swimmingly as everyone expects them to, Croatia will become a EU member state. However if the course doesn’t run smoothly France threatened with sanctions. This might seem persnickety on France’s part but the EU has become wary of Eastern European countries ascending because of the not so successful Bulgaria and Romania member states.
The same women who talked to us about the EU status are in charge of Croatia’s first Gay Pride Parade to be held on June 11th. The women said they’re planning on marching from the city center to the shore and that they have a good relationship with the police so they aren’t worried. Ceca, our program director, on the other hand gave some good reasons to be anxious. First of all we were in the middle of a hate crime just a week ago in Montenegro and the atrocities of that evening caused Montenegro’s first Pride to be cancelled. Montenegro is known as the least sensitized to LGBT through the Balkans, but none of the countries are particularly open to LGBT. Split, the city we’re in and where Pride is scheduled, has a history of being conservative tracing back to the Croatian-Serbian war in 1991. After the war a ton of Serbs who’d been living in Croatia, or Yugoslavia as it was just two years prior, we’re virtually exiled to Serbia because of the animosity between Serbs and Croats. (The same happened for Croatians in Serbia; through all of Eastern Europe’s history I’ve learned time and time again that there’s never a single story or truth.) According to Ceca there was a huge population of Serbs, especially in Split and Zagreb, the capital, and when those Serbs left Croats from the villages scrambled to occupy the cities. These village-Croats, however, hadn’t had much exposure to the notion of human rights so they were more conservative than the others which held the rest of the population back from addressing or sensitizing themselves to these issues. The same thing happened in many regions of the Balkans and some countries also faced sanctions and harsh codes of law in the ’90s further cutting them off from any human rights movements in the West. On top of this conservativism are strong ties of Croats to the Catholic church. Serbs have their own interdependence with the Orthodox church. Montenegro doesn’t have as many religious adherents and they are they least accepting to the LGBT population. Between conservativism and Catholism Ceca is apprehensive about the outcome of Croatia’s Pride.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Drvengrad
What a fun town. This was our pit-stop on the road to Montenegro and it just so happened that while we were there a medieval reenactment/face-off with competitors from the Balkans and Russia.
The town was built as a movie set for Emir Kusturica film “Underground” and Kusturica kept it operating since. People live and work there and keep it up as a village frozen in the traditional past. Drvengrad literally means wooden city.
Since Johnny Depp starred in Arizona Dream he is permanently there in stone-form like the Pirates ride at Disneyland, although he’s much more lively in the second. Depp and Kusturica are said to be good pals. Kusturica established the Küstendorf International Film and Music Festival a few years back and at least this year Johnny Depp attended.
The town was built as a movie set for Emir Kusturica film “Underground” and Kusturica kept it operating since. People live and work there and keep it up as a village frozen in the traditional past. Drvengrad literally means wooden city.
Since Johnny Depp starred in Arizona Dream he is permanently there in stone-form like the Pirates ride at Disneyland, although he’s much more lively in the second. Depp and Kusturica are said to be good pals. Kusturica established the Küstendorf International Film and Music Festival a few years back and at least this year Johnny Depp attended.
With their backs to the world
This is the title of a collection of stories/interviews Asne Seierstad, a Norwegian journalist, conducted and compiled to create “Portraits of Serbia.” To be honest the book didn’t quite hold my interest but the author does a remarkable job of capturing the mentality, character, indignation, perceptions, habits, thoughts and feelings of Serbs. For this reason I’d recommend it to anyone interested in understanding the Serb.
It was written during the final years of Milosevic, the Serbian dictator from ‘89 to ‘01 succeeding the totalitarian Tito, and the journalist went back after Milosevic was taken down by the people and fair elections were held to report the changes in spirits. This comparison draws out the way people react to getting by in an oppressive state, to the woes of society, to the bringing down of a dictator, and to the problems that have persisted or emerged since his ousting. I didn’t witness the crossover of during and after Milosevic so I can’t verify the before phase but every character/interviewee in the book bears similarities to Serbs I’ve talked to in the past eight and a half months so I trust her .
These are a few quotes that stood out while reading it:
“‘I was sitting on this very balcony, watching the bombs drop. Bombs from America, a country that has more people in jail that any other on earth, a country where only five per cent of the population have an education, a country that put the Indians in reservations.’”
This interviewee was a typical, middle-aged man. It’s very common to hear these “facts” spewing out of Serbs of all ages and we’ve learned to deal with it without putting much of an effort. That’s the safest response, from judgment and/or hostility, and it’s tested our humility and restraint.
The book mentions a collection of essays entitled “Why I’m Still in Serbia, and What My Hopes Are” and one journalist who refused to write for it was “as if it is abnormal to live in one’s own country”
Good point. Most everyone I’ve met has shown interest in leaving for the US or Western Europe but they justify it with a shrug or what can you do sort of response. But no one has ever questioned the reasons one would question wanting to leave in the first place. It’s just taken for granted that reasons exist since the Western world is thought of by many as the place to go for better and fairer opportunities. It might not be the best reason but nationalism carrying some weight makes sense.
“Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this aloud but Serbia is not ready for democracy. I don’t think it’s good for us. Look at the prices – they’ve quadrupled since the coup [to take down Milosevic in 2001], and my pension has gone up by just ten per cent. Serbia needs a new Tito. A firm hand. Only then will we get any order in this country. We can’t manage ourselves. We’re just not ready for it”
I appreciated this interviewee the most because she made the least drastic claims and most sense. Serbia’s democracy is trying, and to me it’s not really the government that’s to blame but the citizens who – for the most part – don’t bother with fueling the democracy with their votes, opinions, and interest. Now playing the devil’s advocate, why should they? They’ve witnessed far too many corrupt and failed administrations and a person only has so much hope and optimism which, for most, petered out after Tito died. Now quite a few people I talked to long for another charismatic totalitarian ruler to take their troubles away, or at least hide them. However those Yugo-nostalgic seem to overlook the less favorable qualities like how he imprisoned anyone who spoke against him, even if it began and ended with words. Ceca, our program director, has personal experience with this because her own father was put in jail for an entire year for saying something negative about Tito. Those evoking Tito are usually of the generations who lived through his reign since the youth of today are experiencing the debt and problems he’s indirectly causing by not having invested in the future. I’ve already discussed the apathy of the youth and if it’s true that those of past generations have grown apathetic longing for the days of Tito then you more or less have an apathetic society, futile soil for a democracy.
One of the most common Serbian traits I’ve observed this year is well-displayed in this book and that is their habit of taking every decision, however petty or insignificant, seriously and engaging in passionate argument/discussion for each. Misunderstandings are not simply brushed under the rug for courtesy’s sake, they are thrown against a wall and not removed until the matter is cleared up for all parties. There’s no room for bashfulness at a dinner table, or anywhere really, in Serbia.
Dark humor, sarcasm, and mockery present themselves in the quotes of all interviewees and in most Serbs I’ve met. They claim to rely on those to pick themselves up from the sad state of their country.
The author also does a nice job of illustrating the reliance on food (the process, symbolism, and tradition). A major cultural difference between the Balkans and the States is the common occurrence of children living with their parents until they’re into their 30s. This can partly be accounted to the high unemployment rate throughout the Balkans but it’s also cultural in the way they regard family. Youth here don’t leave home for college like many do in the States and if they’re coming from a village or town without a university they generally live with family or friends in the college city because housing isn’t offered at universities. Most parents I’ve met bring up how impossible it would be to let their children go to another part of the country right after high school, virtually moving out, even if it’s for further education. And they sometimes take discomfort when imagining their children taking a gap year or going to another part of the world at 18 for nine months. Jelena, my 29-year-old host sister in Nis, wanted to study in Belgrade—Serbia’s capital—right after high school but her parents talked her into staying in Nis. After one year she couldn’t stand it so she insisted on moving to Belgrade and studying there. For the first four months after she left her mom wouldn’t talk to or visit her because she felt so betrayed by her daughter leaving. Jelena is still studying and working in Belgrade and even now it’s a sensitive subject for the whole family. Milena, my 24-year-old host sister, still lives in the same room she grew up in and she’s studying at the University in Nis. Though from a western point of view, Jelena’s actions seem normal, moving out at 20 is basically unheard of and it’s very heard of to live with and rely on their parents through their 20s and 30s.
These quotes and thoughts highlighted various characteristic bits of Serbian/Balkan culture that I’ve been meaning to put down. Sorry for the potentially scattered approach. Like I said the book does a fine job of showing the feelings of Serbs so for that reason I would recommend it.
Further reading: Bridge on the Drina—Ivo Andrić won the Nobel Prize for Literature this book and Emir Kusturica (Drvengrad mastermind) is directing a feature film based on it
Documentaries: Whose Song is This—about the disputed origins throughout the Balkans of a particular folk song
Bringing Down a Dictator—a great documentary about the political group Otpor who lead the resistance against Milosevic from ’99 to ’01
It was written during the final years of Milosevic, the Serbian dictator from ‘89 to ‘01 succeeding the totalitarian Tito, and the journalist went back after Milosevic was taken down by the people and fair elections were held to report the changes in spirits. This comparison draws out the way people react to getting by in an oppressive state, to the woes of society, to the bringing down of a dictator, and to the problems that have persisted or emerged since his ousting. I didn’t witness the crossover of during and after Milosevic so I can’t verify the before phase but every character/interviewee in the book bears similarities to Serbs I’ve talked to in the past eight and a half months so I trust her .
These are a few quotes that stood out while reading it:
“‘I was sitting on this very balcony, watching the bombs drop. Bombs from America, a country that has more people in jail that any other on earth, a country where only five per cent of the population have an education, a country that put the Indians in reservations.’”
This interviewee was a typical, middle-aged man. It’s very common to hear these “facts” spewing out of Serbs of all ages and we’ve learned to deal with it without putting much of an effort. That’s the safest response, from judgment and/or hostility, and it’s tested our humility and restraint.
The book mentions a collection of essays entitled “Why I’m Still in Serbia, and What My Hopes Are” and one journalist who refused to write for it was “as if it is abnormal to live in one’s own country”
Good point. Most everyone I’ve met has shown interest in leaving for the US or Western Europe but they justify it with a shrug or what can you do sort of response. But no one has ever questioned the reasons one would question wanting to leave in the first place. It’s just taken for granted that reasons exist since the Western world is thought of by many as the place to go for better and fairer opportunities. It might not be the best reason but nationalism carrying some weight makes sense.
“Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this aloud but Serbia is not ready for democracy. I don’t think it’s good for us. Look at the prices – they’ve quadrupled since the coup [to take down Milosevic in 2001], and my pension has gone up by just ten per cent. Serbia needs a new Tito. A firm hand. Only then will we get any order in this country. We can’t manage ourselves. We’re just not ready for it”
I appreciated this interviewee the most because she made the least drastic claims and most sense. Serbia’s democracy is trying, and to me it’s not really the government that’s to blame but the citizens who – for the most part – don’t bother with fueling the democracy with their votes, opinions, and interest. Now playing the devil’s advocate, why should they? They’ve witnessed far too many corrupt and failed administrations and a person only has so much hope and optimism which, for most, petered out after Tito died. Now quite a few people I talked to long for another charismatic totalitarian ruler to take their troubles away, or at least hide them. However those Yugo-nostalgic seem to overlook the less favorable qualities like how he imprisoned anyone who spoke against him, even if it began and ended with words. Ceca, our program director, has personal experience with this because her own father was put in jail for an entire year for saying something negative about Tito. Those evoking Tito are usually of the generations who lived through his reign since the youth of today are experiencing the debt and problems he’s indirectly causing by not having invested in the future. I’ve already discussed the apathy of the youth and if it’s true that those of past generations have grown apathetic longing for the days of Tito then you more or less have an apathetic society, futile soil for a democracy.
One of the most common Serbian traits I’ve observed this year is well-displayed in this book and that is their habit of taking every decision, however petty or insignificant, seriously and engaging in passionate argument/discussion for each. Misunderstandings are not simply brushed under the rug for courtesy’s sake, they are thrown against a wall and not removed until the matter is cleared up for all parties. There’s no room for bashfulness at a dinner table, or anywhere really, in Serbia.
Dark humor, sarcasm, and mockery present themselves in the quotes of all interviewees and in most Serbs I’ve met. They claim to rely on those to pick themselves up from the sad state of their country.
The author also does a nice job of illustrating the reliance on food (the process, symbolism, and tradition). A major cultural difference between the Balkans and the States is the common occurrence of children living with their parents until they’re into their 30s. This can partly be accounted to the high unemployment rate throughout the Balkans but it’s also cultural in the way they regard family. Youth here don’t leave home for college like many do in the States and if they’re coming from a village or town without a university they generally live with family or friends in the college city because housing isn’t offered at universities. Most parents I’ve met bring up how impossible it would be to let their children go to another part of the country right after high school, virtually moving out, even if it’s for further education. And they sometimes take discomfort when imagining their children taking a gap year or going to another part of the world at 18 for nine months. Jelena, my 29-year-old host sister in Nis, wanted to study in Belgrade—Serbia’s capital—right after high school but her parents talked her into staying in Nis. After one year she couldn’t stand it so she insisted on moving to Belgrade and studying there. For the first four months after she left her mom wouldn’t talk to or visit her because she felt so betrayed by her daughter leaving. Jelena is still studying and working in Belgrade and even now it’s a sensitive subject for the whole family. Milena, my 24-year-old host sister, still lives in the same room she grew up in and she’s studying at the University in Nis. Though from a western point of view, Jelena’s actions seem normal, moving out at 20 is basically unheard of and it’s very heard of to live with and rely on their parents through their 20s and 30s.
These quotes and thoughts highlighted various characteristic bits of Serbian/Balkan culture that I’ve been meaning to put down. Sorry for the potentially scattered approach. Like I said the book does a fine job of showing the feelings of Serbs so for that reason I would recommend it.
Further reading: Bridge on the Drina—Ivo Andrić won the Nobel Prize for Literature this book and Emir Kusturica (Drvengrad mastermind) is directing a feature film based on it
Documentaries: Whose Song is This—about the disputed origins throughout the Balkans of a particular folk song
Bringing Down a Dictator—a great documentary about the political group Otpor who lead the resistance against Milosevic from ’99 to ’01
I'm back!
Hello! Sorry for the hiatus. I’m currently posting from our hostel situated in a monastery/nunnery/kindergarten in Split, Croatia. The nuns are all very sweet and it’s a quite a calming, reflective, and peaceful place to spend our last seven days. Yes it’s come to that, just seven more days! I can hardly believe it. Moving right along, here are a bunch of pictures from Biogradska Gora, the national park in Montenegro we volunteered at for ten days.
Montenegro is the 1st ecological state in the world. It’s a small country and we wound up seeing a fair bit through the seats of a van. It’s very mountainous with windy roads like in Hawaii and forests, rivers, waterfalls, and valleys everywhere. We took a few excursions to various villages and towns and though a portion of the drives was spent sleeping it, each trip felt like complete wilderness until we reached our destination with hardly any industrialization between the start and end points.
Biogradska Gora is one of the last three primeval forests in Europe embedded between the Tara and Lim rivers. In 1878 Montenegrin Prince Nikola I established the protection of the lake and surrounding virgin forest. This was the first official time nature was protected in Europe. It has 5,400 hectares extending over three municipalities and at the highest point it’s 2,139 meters above sea level. We must have been near that high point because it was freezing, literally, at times which, I would be persuaded to believe, requires substantial altitude in mid-May.
While we were there we experienced all seasons, no joke. It snowed/hailed for three days and rained for three, and we had four sunny days. Fortunately, as you can see, it’s a beautiful place to be in every condition and there were only a few other people who stopped at the park during our stay.
One of the warm, dry afternoons we made two fires and barbecued.
View from the top of a hike
Fog
Cabins
Cabins in snow
Winter
Summer
Montenegro is the 1st ecological state in the world. It’s a small country and we wound up seeing a fair bit through the seats of a van. It’s very mountainous with windy roads like in Hawaii and forests, rivers, waterfalls, and valleys everywhere. We took a few excursions to various villages and towns and though a portion of the drives was spent sleeping it, each trip felt like complete wilderness until we reached our destination with hardly any industrialization between the start and end points.
Biogradska Gora is one of the last three primeval forests in Europe embedded between the Tara and Lim rivers. In 1878 Montenegrin Prince Nikola I established the protection of the lake and surrounding virgin forest. This was the first official time nature was protected in Europe. It has 5,400 hectares extending over three municipalities and at the highest point it’s 2,139 meters above sea level. We must have been near that high point because it was freezing, literally, at times which, I would be persuaded to believe, requires substantial altitude in mid-May.
While we were there we experienced all seasons, no joke. It snowed/hailed for three days and rained for three, and we had four sunny days. Fortunately, as you can see, it’s a beautiful place to be in every condition and there were only a few other people who stopped at the park during our stay.
One of the warm, dry afternoons we made two fires and barbecued.
View from the top of a hike
Fog
Cabins
Cabins in snow
Winter
Summer
Saturday, May 7, 2011
So long for now!
Within the hour I'll be on the road with my friends to Montenegro. For fifteen days we'll be volunteering at work camps on the mountain and by the sea and I will not be posting a thing because we will not have internet. For this very reason I have seriously flooded this blog with posts the past few weeks sp please reference those if you haven't already because I worked hard on them!
I promise pictures and stories about Montenegro and Croatia when I have internet access again. Hvala što čitate = thanks for reading!
Prijatan petnaest dani ~ happy fifteen days!
I promise pictures and stories about Montenegro and Croatia when I have internet access again. Hvala što čitate = thanks for reading!
Prijatan petnaest dani ~ happy fifteen days!
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