Sunday, July 27, 2008

Croatia, Austria, and The Czech Republic

Leaving Bosnia and Herzegovina it became clear that the distinctively rustic part of our travels were coming to an end. Since June 16 we had been traveling in poor countries, Greece being the most wealthy among them. Bosnia and Herzegovina appeared to be the poorest of them all, made that way by a recent history of brutal civil war. But now, from the capital city of the Republic Serbska, Banja Luca, we were heading towards the countries of the EU, with all of its modern rules and regulations, wealth and interconnectedness.

We were joined on our journey by a 21 year-old Russian Ph.D student, who had been living in Croatia studying Balkans politics and was soon leaving for New York to finish her schooling. From the description it might appear that she was a very interesting acquaintance, but she turned out to have a very abrasive personality. Even though I could tell from the beginning that she was hard to be around, I could do little as she slowly asserted control over mine and Al's travel plans from the moment we got off the bus in Zagreb, pulling us onto buses with the excuse of trying to help us find a hostel. I think part of the reason she took such an interest in us was because we told her we had been on Birthright to Israel. She, as it turned out, was Jewish as well. She called me 'her Jewish friend.'

She was not easy-going, nor did she have a sense of humor, and her presence began to ratchet up the stress. She was able, however, to find the hostel she was staying at, and the very friendly hostel attendant, thinking that we were all together in a group, tried to find us a space in the hostel although it was almost full. She offered Al and I a single bed to share for a discount, and we took it. The 'Russian reach around,' as we not-so-affectionately began to call our new co-traveller, was hungry, and so, not wanting to spend any more money or time than was needed with her, we steered her into going to McDonald's. Al was especially excited by the menu options, so much so that he went back for seconds on a milk-shake. This was to be the first of a number of stops at McDonald's that Al and I would make in the course of our travels in the more prosperous, and Americanized, EU Europe (Al loved the ice cream coffee drinks).

That night we managed to break free from the Russian and went out for drinks at an Irish bar with the hostel attendant, her boyfriend (the young part-owner of the hostel), their friend, and three English girls from the hostel. Over a Guinness the hostel attendant's boyfriend told us of how he got into the hostel business: He was trying to learn Japanese, and found out about a website that connects Japanese speakers with Croatian speakers so that they can teach each other their respective languages. He happened to get in contact with a Japanese man who was looking to start a hostel in Zagreb and wanted a Croatian to be his business partner. We were all happy to find out the history of our humble hostel.

The next day we toured around Zagreb a bit, planning our day out so that we could catch the overnight bus to Vienna at 11pm. We visited an old-masters art museum, rushing through most of it because we arrived right before closing time (it's not a good idea to plan much of anything in Europe on Sunday). We strolled down streets, observing the obviously Austrian inspired architecture in all of its flamboyant Baroqueness (it was nothing compared to Vienna though).

After a fulfilling pasta meal where we managed to spend almost all of our remaining Croatian kuna, we went back to our hostel, retrieved our bags, and headed to the bus depot. Just to make sure that we didn't leave Croatia with a single kuna needing usurious exchange, I suggested that we buy a snack for the bus ride. Unfortunately, we did not count on being charged for each piece of luggage on top of the ticket price, a practice common in the poorer Balkan regions but one which we thought we had left behind. So at the last minute I had to find an ATM, get charged a $5 transaction fee (a tariff that has added a considerable expense to our trip after months of travel) for money I was not going to be able to use, and pay the disgruntled bus driver.

But no matter: we were on our way, late at night, on a crowded little bus. Al easily dosed off on his neck pillow, but I was stuck sitting next to a beer drinking, cell phone talking Croatian, and wasn't able to sleep. When I finally managed to get a bit of sleep we arrived at the Slovenian EU border and were forced to debark at the checkpoint with a storm thundering around us. The process of passport checking took quite a while, but it was not without its entertainment: an old, apparently senile woman in front of me, tired of waiting in line, decided it best to just walk straight across the border. So after a hesitant start she picked up pace, and soon was waddling into Slovenia. A boarder guard and our bus driver chased her down, put her at the front of the line, and then once her passport was oked, walk her, legally this time, into Slovenia. Once there though, she tired of waiting for the others still on the other side, so she started back across the border, into Croatia, eliciting the same response from the border guard and bus driver.

At six in the morning we arrived in Vienna, lacking a map or any information on how to reach our Viennese host, Judith, because we weren't able to get her response email in time. We got on a U-Bahn and headed to the center of town. After a light nap under the awning of some impressive neo-classical building (still not sure what function the place had in imperial times) we went to a ritzy coffee shop where we ordered a cappuccino and small croissant, all coming to around 7 euro per person. At last - after spending a euro and a half on fifteen minutes of Internet - we found directions to Judith's house and headed her way.

Judith lived in what seemed to be a more working class, culturally diverse neighborhood. It was very nice, and offered easy access to very cheap Turkish food restaurants featuring the ubiquitous 'Donar Kebab'. Her apartment was also very close to light rail going towards a hub U-bahn station, but was also walking distance from many of the interesting cultural treats of Vienna.

Our stay with Judith turned out to be more than we could have hoped for. She was extremely hospitable, giving Al and I her bed - for which we repaid her in delicious fried egg breakfasts most mornings and a carbarnara pasta dinner - and when she was not busy with school work or preparing for her imminent departure to China for a year long study abroad program, she took us around the city, to swanky bars, coffee shops (where we tried a variety of famous Viennese pastries and deserts), an outdoor concert, a short film festival, a pay-what-you-like Indian restaurant, and a modern-art gallery. She introduced us to friends, and even was so kind as to talk politics with me, telling me about the recent electoral history of her country, the different parties, and the sometimes provincial and racist recalcitrance of her fellow Austrians.

Our stay in Vienna, for me, was marked by a lot of viewing and discussion of art. This, of course, is Al's forte, and he had a great time reflecting on a central and eastern European art history class he took a few years back, educating me on the importance of Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimpt - the few names that I remember. We also, coincidentally, ran into Al's friend Sean at the Secessionist's (a early 20th century Viennese art movement) art nuevo HQ, who we knew was going to be in Vienna but was a surprise to run into nonetheless. We followed him and his art class into a couple galleries, but Judith and I were fatigued by all the avant garde art we had seen that day (though John Currin's hilarious paintings did offer a respite from art theory) and so headed back home.

After a long week exploring Vienna we sadly packed our bags and headed to the edge of town, hoping to hitch a ride to Prague. The problem was that the Austrian drivers had other plans. Al and I sat on the corner of the autobahn - or whatever the Austrians call it - for around two and a half hours before we decided it was hopeless and headed first for the train station, but then, finding trains too expensive, for the bus station, where the 21 euro ticket was more to our liking.

We arrived in Prague late that night, and after much confusion as to the location of our hostel, got onto a subway train and soon arrived at our somewhat rundown, but perfectly decent hostel on the outskirts of town. It turned out that our hostel wasn't particularly fun - everyone kind of kept to themselves - although I did have quite a surprise when I walked into our room the first night to find two guys from the Canary Islands whom I had share a hostel room with before when my friend Molly and I visited London a year and a half ago.

Like our hostel though, Prague too was less interesting than other places we had been on our journey through Europe. It wasn't that it wasn't beautiful - it was - and it wasn't that it didn't have any interesting things to offer - it does- it was, I think, that Al and I were not in the mood to be tourists, and in Prague, there is no way one can not be a tourist. The city is swarming with people from all around the world, and while this may, in certain places, imbue a certain cosmopolitanism, in Prague, where the multiculturalism is due mostly to holiday makers, the crowds give the city a Disney Land feel (Disney World might be more accurate).

It wasn't that I actively disliked Prague; I didn't. In fact we did quite a few cool things. While the Franz Kafka museum was underwhelming, walking through Malá Strana below the Prague castle was very enjoyable. Along these same lines, seeing Pink Floyed's The Wall might have been mainly an opportunity to remember how incredible idiotic that film was, but seeing it at an open air theatre on an Island in the Vltava River as it sporadically rained was quite enjoyable (although not enjoyable enough to keep us there through the whole movie). We also met up with Sean again, who had been living there for a month and more, had some great beer at an artisan beer brewery, and had lots of reading time. So it wasn't bad; it just wasn't great, wasn't as interesting and authentic as the other places we had visited up to that point.

So after four days we left Prague on a mid-afternoon bus, heading to our final European destination: Berlin.

From Berlin,
Brett






Friday, July 25, 2008

In Berlin with Obama

Yesterday Al and I went down to the Victory Column in Berlin to hear Barack Obama speak to Berliners - and Europe - about the future of U.S.-Europe relations, whether or not he is elected president - although it sure would be a disappointment for all those people who came out to see him if he ends up losing.
I was not all that impressed by the speech. He didn't say much, choosing instead to paint a dramatic, if by now tired, picture of Euro-American relations as a partnership in the pursuit of greater freedom around the world, using the Berlin airlifts and the fall of communism as examples of the power of the trans-Atlantic partnership.
He did a fine job of working the crowed, one moment revving them up with pledges of support for tackling issue dear to most Germans such as nuclear disarmament and global warming, and the next calming them with less popular proposals such as expanding NATO commitments in Afghanistan with the help of German troops. I got the feeling that many who were there wanted to be moved by Obama, and tried very hard to get into it, but that there was very little that they could really latch on to and say 'this is the reason I support him over McCain; this is the issue that differentiates him.' On any close study of where Mr. Obama stands on many key principles, it is obvious how far apart Europe and the U.S. actually are. From the ethics of capital punishment to the reality of the American empire, there are very few issues that Americans and Europeans truly see eye to eye on. Mr. Obama's visit surly did not make this divide explicitly known to all the millions hearing him live and on television, but his presidency will.


Here Al and I are (inside the red circle) at the Obama rally. Obviously one of millions. This photo comes from the New York Times website here.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Americans Abroad

Al and I are not the only Americans eagerly anticipated in Berlin. Unbeknown to us, our trip in Berlin coincides with the arrival of another American a bit more famous than us. Tonight at 7 pm, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama will be speaking at the Victory Column in the center of Berlin to an estimated crowd of over 1 million people. If we get there 3 hours before, we will also be able to hear him speak, which for us holds a special interest since it will be a rare opportunity to be an outsider at an American presidential campaign speech. Regardless of my political proclivities, I am excited to witness what seems to be a historical event if for no other reason than it being the largest international presidential campaigning event in history.

From Berlin,
Brett

Monday, July 21, 2008

Bosnia and Herzegovina

I was negatively predisposed to Bosnia and Herzegovina by the time I spent in Serbia. The people I spoke to , especially Vlad who was originally from Sarajevo and was forced to leave during the war, and the book I had been reading introduced me to the awkward history of the country. I wish it were not so, but I travelled to our next stop in our Balkan tour with a complete set of biases.
But as we drove across the Bosnian country side at dusk it was hard to hold on to grudges. It was also hard to harbor anger towards people who had over the centuries, created for themselves such a bucolic home. Gazing across such a peaceful landscape as Northern Bosnia, it seemed incomprehensible that such a place could have nurtured the hatred that burst into war in the early nineties. I knew of course, that in fact this was one of many conflict flash points, that many of the people still living in the north of Bosnia, in what is officially - in all but international recognition - the separate nation of the Serbian Republic, still harbor animosity towards the others - Bosnian Muslims mostly. For reasons that were not readily apparent, especially from a quick drive through the place, I knew that the problems that started the first conflict have yet to be resolved, and this land could once again beget the worst of human cruelty. For now though, I decided, I would forget all of the human turmoil and just appreciate the natural and man made beauty of the place. It wasn't hard to do. I put on Chopin followed by an oriental sounding Kronos Quartet CD, and peered out the window:
We passed through a lively town on the crest of a hill. Children played basketball and soccer at a rundown but wholly functional schoolyard. Many other children lounged on the rafters encircling the yard and watched their peers play. We passed them by quickly and the children turned to watch us go.
Below their village, the hills tumbled away from us, mist rising from the contours of the landscape. The damp air and low light blended the greens, yellows, and blues of the countryside, softening contrasts and distinctions that would be present at midday. With such a view, and oriental music flitting in my ear, the mind can wonder and feel expansive. Shapes and ideas formed from the shadowy shapes of mountains, trees and houses until finally darkness obscured everything and brought the night sky into view. A crescent moon peered from behind foliage, reminding that we were leaving Christian Orthodox Serbia and were reaching Islamic Bosnia and Herzegovina.

We arrived at Sarajevo late that night. I worried about our chances of finding a hostel, but we were met at the bus by a man from a lonely planet approved hostel who drove us into the old city, past the massive, wall encircled construction site of the new U.S. embassy (you know you are in an important strategic spot when the U.S. builds such an immense embassy) to a couple of beds in dingy, but inexpensive, hostel.
Sarajevo was hot for the duration of our stay, only cooling off briefly for a few minutes of torrential rainfall. The weather worked perfectly with the way one is supposed to enjoy the city though: with oriental leisure. I, nor Al, could refuse this Ottoman contributed culture of long coffee breaks, and so we spent a good portion of our time sitting around by the Miljaha River bank, sipping on espresso's, Al usually writing or drawing in his journal while I read. We visited the old Turkish quarter of the city where tourists and locals alike stroll through cobblestone streets flanked by souvenir shops housed in original low roofed Turkish houses. We climbed to the top of a low hill in the north of the city, and took in the view of Sarajevo: the river snaking through a steep valley; grey buildings with brown roofs on either side; bristling with white minarets, many recently remodeled after the war, often with generous donations from oil-rich Saudi Arabia.
Our hostel turned out to be a very fun place. A group of English girls on their way to the Exit music festival in Novi Sad, Serbia arrived along with two Icelandic guys, another Englishman, and a Fin. The famous English congeniality - especially over a beer - made our stay very enjoyable.
Due to a tight budget we had been stingy when it came to food, but in Sarajevo we decided to splurge a little and eat out.; a very good choice as it turned out. Twice we went to a great traditional Bosnian restaurant (though our enthusiasm could have been a product of our other less than stellar meals).
After a few days spent lounging about in Sarajevo, we decided to go down to Mostar, a 2 1/2 hour train ride from Sarajevo. On our first attempt at getting to Mostar we found that there are only two trains a day leaving form Sarajevo to Mostar, one at 6 am and the other at 6 pm. After missing the first and not being prepared to take the second and stay over night, we decided on the 6 am train for the following day. So we woke early (so early) and, accompanied by two of the English girls, boarded a rickety train for Mostar.
Mostar was hard hit during the war. It was in the center of numerous battles between Croatians and Serbians, Serbians and Muslims, and Croatians and Muslim Bosnians. By the time the dust settled Mostar was in shambles, and the famous Ottoman built bridge, Stari Most, spanning the Neretva River was destroyed (by Croatian artillery). The city has come a long way since then, but many buildings still remain riddled with bullet holes. Even the skeletal remains of buildings still remain as reminders of the scourge of the inglorious ethnic conflicts of the past.
We stayed over night in Mostar, and in the morning head out on a hitchhiking journey we hoped would take us to the small city of Jajce in the north of Bosnia, and then eventually on to our final destination at Zalankovac in the Bosnian countryside.
Immediately after sticking out our thumb on the road to Mostar we were picked up by an affable guy our age from a town just below the junction leading to Jajce. We talked about music most of the time, and he was able to express his love of Balkans music and that he was in a band, even though he spoke somewhat bad English. At the junction we tried to hitch another ride, but we ran up against lots of competition from others with less baggage then us, so we decided to hitch a ride on a pay bus instead. After many ours of travelling, and one more hitch, we made it to Zalankovac, where we were given a place to stay for free thanks to couchsurfing.com and the eccentric owner of the "ecological park," Boro.
Boro started on his project to renovate his grandfathers mill into an ecological park twenty years ago. As he tells it, the townspeople thought he was crazy - the still call him crazy Boro, which I think is an appropriate name. They never thought he could attract tourists out to the middle-of-know-where in Bosnia. But he worked tirelessly, building bungalows and an interesting complex of log cabins along with a stage where he hosts an annual jazz festival. Many of his guests pay to stay at Zalankovac, but if you contact him he will put you up in a damp bedroom. One can't complain though when its free.
At this ecological retreat we met another American named Theresa. She was somewhere in her forties and had an interesting story to tell. She had been a very successful efficiency manager at almost all the major movie studies in LA. From this job she jumped into the tech sector right as the bubble was growing. She got involved in a start up that she hoped would fetch her a couple hundred million dollars when the company went public. Unfortunately, the tech bubble burst right before they were to go public, and her dreams of riches came to naught - though I think she was still quite wealthy. She decided to retreat from dot-com mania to Tahoe, where her and her apparently uber-cool race car driving boyfriend planned to build a mansion on the lake. Again her dreams were disappointed, this time not by the markets but by a neighbor, who sued them to stop them from cutting down some trees. The situation, by her accounts, got immensely litigious, until she couldn't take it any more and sold her half of the house to her bf, left her Porsche and once-a-night sushi dinners behind, and began a period of her life where she lived off the beneficence of others.
This is the stage at which we met her. To us she seemed a bit of a mooch, though she decided to describe her new life as a case of the universe providing. The funny thing was, that through all of her hippyish appearance - and she did appear quite the hippy - it was clear that she still had the LA bourgeois mentality. I guess the old adage is true: you can take Theresa out of LA, but you can't take LA out of Theresa.
At Boro's place we not only lounged about. On the second day we were there we helped to do some work like digging a hole for a water pipe and packing hay onto tractors. It was a taste of the Bosnian farming life and we enjoyed it, for the most part. Theresa, brought low by hay allergies, watched as me, Al, and a couple Bosnian youths loaded bails of hay from a piece of Boro's farmland onto a cart to be trucked away to waiting milk cows. After our work Boro took us to a patch of land he owns which he will be converting into an airstrip for small planes. He plans on having an aeronautics party some time soon, where friends of his will fly in from all parts of Europe.
Halfway back to Zalankovac from our farming stint, Boro's old car ran out of gas, so, as the sun set below the horizon, Al and I got out and pushed the car. Luckily much of the road to the gas station was downhill, so we were able to coast most of the way. That night I played chess with Boro's 14 year-old son, coincidentally named Alex, and beat him. I was very proud of that. The kid was quite good.
The next morning we said our goodbyes, packed our things, and headed to the road to hitch a ride to Jajce. The moment we were out on the road we were picked up by a guy who, while not going to Jajce, was going to Banja Luca, the capital of the Serbian Republic in Bosnia, and so we quickly decided to change our plans and head to Banja Luca instead, before taking a bus to Zagreb, Croatia. Our driver was not afraid of a little speed, especially on the curving roads heading down to Banja Luca. At times I felt the impulse to clutch the armrests tightly.
We arrived a little outside Banja Luca at around midday, and walked a very long 3 km into to town, searching for Internet, food, and the bus station. We found all three things, booked a ticket to Zagreb, and at around four thirty left for Croatia.

From Prague,
Brett







Sunday, July 6, 2008

Tamo Daleko, Daleko od mora. Tamo ze selo, Tamo ze Serbiya.

I did not know what to expect from Serbia. A guide book can only tell you so much about a place, and it's usually restricted to descriptions of cultural monuments and directions on how to find them. For places like Paris, Rome, or London, where historical sites are carefully preserved with ample funds and great care to give the citizenry and tourist a grand view of each places past and present achievements, your Frommer's or Lonely Planet guide is quite useful. But Belgrade is different. Sure it has its own unique set of cultural sites, but unlike the aforementioned Western European capitals, Belgrade's attractions seem confused in their diversity - here an Austrian fortress, there a uniquely Serb orthodox church, and between a smattering of Turkish buildings - and sometimes dilapidated for lack of funds and by war. Museums in Serbia are not much more useful in helping one understand the country. Many I have visited are more repositories of information and artifacts, light on analysis and English language translations. If there is any visibly explicit clues that can hint at the mentality of the people in Serbia and inform about their history, they are most likely to be found in the street graffiti, skeletal remains of bombed out buildings, and the nonstop nightlife of Belgrade.

To attain a more filled out conception of modern Serbia one must go beyond these visible clues and talk to the people. On our somewhat short sojourn in Belgrade, we were lucky enough to do this. For me the political talks that we had were the most rewarding part of our stay in Serbia, for, as I have said before, the sites only tell part of the story of the region, and without a historical narrative - which is pretty much universally known by young and old alike - they are insipid and without life.
Very shortly after arriving in Belgrade we got our first taste of the political awareness that vivifies life in this city. We were lost late at night in the complex streets of Belgrade trying to find our hostel, and a young newly-graduated doctor offered to help us. On our short walk to our hostel he informed us that he was currently unemployed, unable to find a job as a doctor in Belgrade. He asked us where we were traveling and we told him where we had been and where we were going, adding that we had just crossed over from Montenegro that day. Noticing the perturbed expression that came over him I noted the recent split of Montenegro from Serbia. He responded tersely that he won't go to Montenegro anymore due to their insistence on independence. Later on our walk he added that being a doctor, he was not political, something I found hard to believe.
The next day we went out with a Serbian friend named Marina whom we met through couchsurfing.com. In her original email she made clear that she was not, like the doctor, politically minded, though over coffee she was able to explain the current and historical situation of Serbia much better than a similarly self-described "non-political" American could recount American politics and history.
After coffee we took a tram to Ada Ciganlija - a long island on the Sava river chock full of outdoor activities, bars and eateries - to see how Belgraders spend their free time in the Summer. As we lounged about drinking a beer on one of the many beaches that run along the island, Marina got a call from a friend who was going to a punk rock concert with other couchsurfers.
The other couchsurfers did not make it, but Marina's friends were there. Very quickly one of her friends, Nickola, struck up a lively political discussion with the purposefully incendiary remark that he "doesn't like America". I explained that I don't blame him, that I would probably have difficulty appreciating a country after being on the receiving end of its massive air bombardments only a few years prior. From this spirited beginning Nickola told of his coming of age experience during the NATO military campaign, how he and friends were "like kings" during those times when everything was chaos and no one was in charge. Another friend came and joined our discussion. He was the bassist for the band Give Me Your Lips - GYM for short - and also had much to say on the topic of Serbia, Kosovo, and his grandfather's fight against fascism as a partisan in WWII. Both Nickola and his friend explained how ridiculous it was that they should be so informed about politics, how it is the pathetic outcome of the chaotic dismemberment of Yugoslavia and how they wished they could live more normally: more apathetically.
At the same time they appreciated their first hand experience of history. They recounted their experience at Slobodan Milošović's funeral, how they were the youngest people there and how they relished the fact that he was dead and they were still living and moving on to a hopefully brighter future.
Al and I did more exploring the next day, saw some sites, but felt once against that we were unable to grasp at the essence of the city. We opened our Lonely Planet guide infrequently and only for the map. We did visit the Military Museum, a repository of weapons, with a modern annex dedicated to the recent fight against the "terrorist" KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) and NATO. We saw pieces of a stealth bomber that was shot down in 1999, numerous bomb fragments including three pieces of highly-toxic depleted uranium munitions used against Serbia. Seeing a war from this perspective should be mandatory for all Americans.
The second hostel we stayed at featured a rotating retinue of overseers, and one of the nights we were there we met one very interesting older man who lived right above the hostel and was looking over it as a favor to the owner. He had been an engineer for a large and successful state-run construction company in the former-Yugoslavia. He had traveled all over the world, from Iraq to Mongolia, working on large projects. As Yugoslavia collapsed he witnessed the size of his construction projects shrink and shrink until the company went belly up. I could tell that this was very sad for him.
He was very knowledgeable about history and gave all those listening a very thorough introduction to Serbia. He despised Milošović for the corruption and doom he brought to the country, and saw the current situation in Serbia as worrying, especially since the same corruption as in Milošović's day was still, by his estimation, alive and well. Hearing the perspective of this man who had been through the ups and downs of Yugoslavia was especially interesting, though also quite sad, for things had fallen far from the old days. Still, he was about to receive his pension, though undoubtedly less than what he probably expected when he was younger and his company was, at least in appearance, thriving.
That same night we met up with other hostel guests along with two recently arrived Serbians from Australia and went out for a few beers. The two Serbians were both refuges. Vlad was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and left the country as a refuge when he was 15. After finding the Serbia of Milošović hostile to their needs, his family was granted a pass to Australia, where he had lived for the last fifteen years. His friend Davor was originally from Croatia. His family, like many other Serbs, were pushed out of their homes and fled to Serbia, where they received the same rough treatment from Serbia and so also moved to Australia.
I talked to Davor most of the night. He was very political, and knew a great deal about the history of the former-Yugoslavia. He was the first person I have met that was a reader of the World Socialist Website, a definite plus in my book.
Davor was also passionately pro-Serb, especially when it came to Kosovo. He saw the situation as based on simple historical facts: Kosovo was Serbian and always had been. It holds a unique and important place in the Serbian national identity, being the place where in 1389 Stephen Lazar fought the Ottoman Empire and lost, condemning Serbia to over 500 years of occupation. Since the time of Sultan Murad's conquest of Kosovo and Serbia, the demographics of Kosovo have changed, with large numbers of Muslim Albanian's moving in and now calling it home. The conflict is rooted in problems very familiar to the situation in Israel. But in this case the United States along with a few other NATO countries decided that Kosovo was to be separated from Serbia, something that became a reality a few month ago.
While at this moment many Serbians seem resigned to the fact that, when it comes to such international disputes, they would rather commit to repairing fences with the rest of the world and eventually joining the EU, Davor believes that Serbian national identity will reawaken and Kosovo will come back to Serbia. More worrisome is his belief that the unsteady demographic balancing act holding parts of Bosnia and Croatia together - with Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians, living in reluctant peace - cannot continue forever, and eventually the Serbs will demand autonomy, which could quite possibly lead to more bloodshed.
It is hard to tell without more reading whether this analysis of the situation is accurate. It could be that, like the Jewish Diaspora's relationship to Israel, the Serb diaspora is more apocalyptic than those living in the region who are now, after years of deprivation, just looking for economic prosperity. We shall see.
Throughout our trip in the Balkans I have been reading a book written by Rebecca West in the 1930's called "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" about her travels through the region. At the border between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina I got to the section of the book where the title of the book is discussed. The Black Lamb, taken from a sacrificing ceremony for fertility Ms. West witnessed in Macedonia, symbolizes to West the disgusting mystical beliefs humans illogically hold in which they think that by destroying life in one form man can create life in another. The Grey Falcon imagery is taken from an ancient Serbian poem which describes the choice Stephen Lazar had to make at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 of defeat to the Ottomans with heavenly glory or victory with temporal power and self rule.
The choice the Serbian Tsar Lazar made all those years ago at Kosovo was to be the sacrificed black lamb and to choose the heavenly glory offered by the gray falcon. Those choices, Ms. West comes to understand, are the scourge of those who wish to be good, and in the process sacrifice doing good. Those who hold up the goodness in life would rather be sacrificed for their goodness than to aim for victory which would allow the manifestation of goodness. It is in Yugoslavia, Serbia specifically, a place "which writes obscure things plain, which furnishes symbols for what the intellect has not yet formulated," where West is able to realize this indelible conflict in human existence that resonated severely in her time at the brink of the most destructive war in human history.
Today it seems that we - in the liberal community of the U.S. specifically - have forgotten how to think in the terms symbolized by the black lamb and grey falcon. We are caught in a despicable war in Iraq which has jaded many to the fundamental questions of goodness and what things are worth fighting for. In Serbia the question still lingers, even as many try and ignore it. The question of what the goodness worth fighting for is, who holds it, and which side is offering to work for its fulfillment still remains. Those we talked to on our short stay in Serbia are forced to deal with these questions as very few Americans ever are, and regardless of whether they choose to approach it nationalistically or otherwise, the fact that the questions still remain is important. As in Rebecca West's time, Serbia is still the place to go to grapple with the eternal problems of human existence.

From Sarajevo,
Brett

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

From Tirana to Belgrade

Tirana had its charm, but after a few days in this messy metropolis Tim, Al and I were wanting to move on. We had seen all the sights - which are conveniently located along the Bulevardi Deshmorel - walked through the trendy neighborhoods - mainly located in what was once the exclusive stomping grounds of Albania's communist party leaders - and marveled at the good to comically bad architecture of Albania's seething capital city.

One of the highlights was visiting the Albanian national art gallery. Housed in a stark communist era box of a building, the museum displays a narrow spectrum of art - often dimly lit - ranging from giant socialist realist paintings to ancient iconography, with not much in between save for a few sculptures. Nevertheless the museum was quite possibly the most entertaining museum I have been to. The paintings were characterized, for the most part, by each ones inclusion of at least one weapon - gun, knife, saber - a heroically poised male - usually with fist tightly clenched in an attempt to convey male virility and power - and Albania's famously foreboding national flag - see it here. Photography, unfortunately, was not allowed, but since the gift store offered no way to buy even a postcard of one of the socialist realist paintings, we had no choice but to take a few shots when no one was looking - this task our Australian friend Tim readily accepted. Hopefully I can get those photos from Tim sooner than later and put them up on the blog.

We had a few favorite socialist realist paintings. One was of a mother breast feeding her child, her knitting needles set aside, replaced by a large rifle which she rested upon her knee. She sat before a farmhouse with a red door emblazoned with the black double eagle crest of Albania. Behind the farmhouse a dark storm was gathering. We also enjoyed a large painting of a muscular man with a cape straddling a tank about to throw a grenade down its hatch.

After perusing the museums modern collection we went into the iconography section. I am not very interested in early iconography. It doesn't really do anything for me although I appreciate the skill that was involved in making it. What I did find interesting in this section of the museum was what was behind a large iconography piece: a set of seven panels outlining a "master plan" for the redevelopment of Tirana. Included was a large 3D map of what the new Tirana will look like, the skyline ripe with futuristic curved glass buildings. The project looks a long way off, though with China as the obvious model for redevelopment things could start rolling sooner than later. Now all Albania needs is an Olympics to really spur development, though from my experience in Albania I think we won't be seeing Tirana host the games for a long long while.

From Tirana we decided to head to Montenegro to get back to the beach and away from abject poverty. We got a bus from Tirana to the border city of Shkoder, and from Shkoder we got a taxi to the tourist hub of Bar in Montenegro.

Maybe it was just the changing climate, but very soon after crossing the border I began to notice that Montenegro seemed much more green and lush than Albania. Thick foliage hugged both sides of the road. We drove through tunnels of greenery, a light canopy of trees hanging low above us until we emerged from these forests and could see our surroundings: high craggy mountains dusted with snow.

From Bar we traveled to our final destination: Kotor, a small town on a fjord set below towering peaks. After walking around a bit trying to find a suitably inexpensive place to stay we were approached by Marko, a friendly man who spoke no English but was somehow able to communicate to us that he had a room for let in the old walled city of Kotor. Al's heart was set on a hostel that was a few euros cheaper though we had heard some bad things about it, but we all agreed that staying inside the walled city, at least for the first night, at 10 euros a person was the best idea. Al got his wish the next night; more on that to follow shortly.

Kotor is a beautiful city with small twisting streets, ancient orthodox churches, and hopping bars and clubs. Not only is Kotor beautiful but the people who live there are also very beautiful as well. This goes for Montenegro as a whole. The women are tall and shapely, and they are not shy about flaunting their figures. This can often be a good thing, though many girls can push the fashion envelope too far, and end up looking like prostitutes. This lascivious dress code was present in Albania as well, although I thought the girls were often more dolled up and weren't able to get away with it as well as Montenegrins could.

Our second day in Kotor we made the 2 km trip down the road to the youth hostel Al originally wanted to stay at. We found the place in a state of total disrepair, apparently in the midst of remodeling. The receptionist was happy to book us into a 3-bedroom dorm though. We went to our room and found it to be dirty, with unwashed sheets and a few half-finished beer bottles strewn on the table. I went down to talk to the boss and try to bring the price down to 8 euro from 10. He thought my complaints humorous and said that someone would be up to clean the room in half-an-hour.

Tim, Al, and I didn't want to wait around so we went down to the beach and hung about soaking up the sun - responsibly with sunscreen - for most of the day. When the sun was setting and the temperature lower we climbed to the fortress high above the old town of Kotor; a long, steep hike that was in the end rewarding for the view down on the town and across the fjord from the top was incredible.

Late at night we returned to our hostel with a bet on whether our room was cleaned while we were gone. I said that it wouldn't be, and Al, always the optimist, thought it would be. We had 1 euro riding on the professionalism of the hostel.

I won the bet and so went down to talk to the smiling manager who seemed to think it funny that we were still willing to stay at the hostel. I told him that we would at least like clean sheets to which he responded "You want sheets?.... OK" and he took me into his office where he gave me a stack of sheets a bid me farewell - still smiling.

The next day we caught a bus to Durmitor National Park in the north east of the country. The drive was very long, and half of it was on a cramped minibus, but on arrival we knew we had made the right decision in going. The high country of Montenegro is like a less populated version of the Swiss alps, with high alpine meadows filled with wildflowers, giant craggy peaks, and many translucent lakes.

Al and I camped for 3 euro each a night, while Tim stayed in a room. We met up the next morning for Turkish coffee and pastry, before starting a long hike into the heart of Durmitor NP. Our goal was an "ice cave" below an imposing peak that resembled half-dome in Yosemite. The trail took us through some incredibly rugged terrain. Al and I shared crime-scene puzzle stories we had learned while in Israel with Tim as we bouldered up to our destination, and Tim reciprocated with more outlandish puzzles of his own.

We eventually made it to the cave. After a bit of cajoling Al and I climbed down into the ice cave. We were joined by a group of Czech backpackers who were more prepared to get into the cave than we were. We took some pictures with giant stalactite and stalagmite ice sickles, climbed out of the cave, and began our long journey back to town. We rewarded ourselves with a meat meal before Al and I returned in the dusk to our camp ground.

The next day we boarded a bus at 11 bound for Belgrade. We arrived in Belgrade at 8:30 PM, exhausted by the trip and began our search for the Chillton Hostel. After having no luck finding the place we asked a man who happily walked with us to the hostel. He had just graduated from University as a doctor, but due to the state of things in Serbia, was unemployed. He asked where we had come from and we told him Montenegro, to which he responded that he doesn't go to Montenegro any more because they don't want to be part of Serbia so he doesn't see the point in "supporting their economy". Already it was apparent that in this part of the world politics is a fact of life and cannot be easily ignored.

At our hostel we were greeted by two stunning Serbian girls, offered shots of some sort of local spirit which we accepted and then shown our rooms. We showered and headed out to get some food at a fast food chicken joint. We were tired so we went to bed fairly early at around 1 - most people stay up and party in Belgrade, or at least that is what we have heard.

That's the update. Check back soon for more.


From Belgrade,
Brett