Serbia

This trip has been less about sight-seeing and more about catching up with friends before I start law school and am shoved so far into debt that travel will be rendered next to impossible. I'm happy that I managed to save enough money to travel for 2 months and hang out with people who I might not see again for years.

I'm a major proponent of travel - specifically travel that takes you outside of the bounds of well-traversed cities and countries and forces you to interact with locals in ways that aren't explicitly tourist-business related. Such travel has been incredibly rewarding to me and has provided me with some very good friends in Serbia.

On of my favorite things about the trip was how hospitable the average Serb was to me. Mateja, Andreja and their parents Bratislav and Mirjana did everything in their power to show me the best possible time. I met a great number of new friends. I visited places and experienced things that the average tourist to Serbia would never get the chance to do, let alone the average tourist (who doesn't typically visit Serbia). My experience with Slavic hospitality is highlighted by the fact that when we drove to Subotica in the northern province of Vojvodina we were put up by a girl who had only met us the previous day in Belgrade. Additionally, her boyfriend Vladimir (who had been an exchange student in Ohio the previous year) spent the following day showing us around. Slavic hospitality cannot be overstated. I was laughed at for offering to help pay for things and had I the gall to do so I'm sure that most of my friends would have given me the shirt off their back had I asked for it (which in the case of Dusan would have been quite the feat). It's very hard to pay back such kindness. I'm hoping that the people who gave me so much in Serbia will have the chance to visit America one day where I will do my best to return the favor.

So, for now - a very heart-felt thank-you to the Stankovic family, the Kitanovic family, the Kostadinovic family, Maja, Milica, Vladimir, Milan and so many others. I wish you all the best and hope that one day I can show you around my country.

Karl Haudbourg, the self-styled "Ambassador of Serbia to the World" and a guy that's doing great work to improve Serbia's international image, found my blog and after some back-and-forth conversation asked me to write an article for his webpage. His webpage is here: http://www.ambassador-serbia.com/ and my article is the current "featured article" titled "Is Serbia Safe For Americans and Other Foreigners". Check it out!

By the way - Some plans have changed: Originally I was going to head straight to Salzburg from Serbia but transportation options have become more difficult. So, instead I'm going to stop off in Ljubljana, Slovenia for a couple days. Ljubljana is one of my favorite cities (if not my outright favorite) in Europe. Over the past week I've been trying to figure how to get from southern Serbia to Salzburg and whenever I did so I ended up looking at Ljubljana on a map. Additionally, Mateja's got to get back to studying because he's got a major exam coming up in late August. So, this coming Friday morning (really, it'll still be Thursday night for me) at 1am I'm getting on a train in Nis bound for Ljubljana. I'll be staying there for two nights.

Planning to get an early start but owing to the complicating factors of drinking too much the night before, me desperately wanting a haircut and the fact that we're all basically on vacation we didn't leave for Vojvodina until 2pm. Despite that the trip turned out to be a fantastic way to spend ~34 hours and I don't feel like we missed much of anything.

We started our trip cutting west toward the Croatian boarder from Belgrade before turning north to drive through the "mountainous" national park of Frus(h)ka Gora. (I put mountainous in parenthesis because it's a very long hill of about 600m which gets it's dramatic look from the fact that it rises suspiciously from the otherwise flat plain of Vojvodina) Fruska Gora is very pretty and reminds me of the drive toward Sol Duc in Washington. There are many Serbian Orthodox monasteries throughout Fruska Gora and it, along with Sremski Karlovci on it's northern edge, has played an important role in the development and maintenance of Serbian cultural identity.

Our first major stop in Vojvodina was in Sremski Karlovci. It's a small town with some very nice baroque buildings in its main square. It was the center of Serb culture for a period and was a very important political center. The facade of the Serbian Orthodox church looks much like the catholic churches in Budapest and Krakow but inside its features are much more obviously Orthodox. Incredible icons in gold and ebony cover one wall and the rest of the walls and decorated in deep greens and reds.

Before leaving Sremski Karlovci we ate lunch/dinner in the main square which consisted of typical Serbian fare - grilled meats, shopska salad and bread. The shopska was easily the worst that I've had. The cheese was horrible and faaar too sharp.

After dinner we headed to Petrovaradin Fortress. It's a very large fortress that was built by the Austrians to defend against the Turks and was never captured. In 2000 growing discontent with the Milosevic regime led a large group of artists and musicians to hold the EXIT Festival on the grounds of the fortress. Initially it featured only domestic musicians and lasted for 60 days but the following year, in 2001, EXIT became international. It's now widely regarded as one of the best international music festivals gathering popular acts from all over the world and few (if any) can claim a setting so dramatic as the grounds of a massive fortress far above the Danube river.

Across the Danube we stopped in Novi Sad. Novi Sad functions as the seat of the Vojvodinian provincial government. Serbia doesn't have a lot of beautiful architecture south of Vojvodina (though there is some!) but Novi Sad, with continued investment, could (and probably will) be a solid tourist attraction. There are some great baroque pieces and a fantastic catholic cathedral built during the time that Vojvodina was under Austro-Hungarian rule.

As the sun started going down we jumped into Mateja's car and made for Subotica, a city in the far north of Serbia and right on the Hungarian border. I had read a little about Subotica but wasn't prepared for the beauty of the small city.

The destruction of World War 2 largely bypassed Subotica and left it's array of baroque and art nouveau buildings intact. Among the more impressive buildings is the modern art gallery which errs on side of Gaudi but is less superficial and superfluous and seems to follow more natural lines with certain Mucha qualities. At one side of Trg Republike (Republic Square) is the huge Subotica town hall - also in the art nouveau style. Oddly, at the base of the town hall is a McDonalds. Also in Subotica is one of the best cafes I've been to in Europe (which, much like the rest of Serbia, has freakishly awesome prices) called Cafe Boss. Apparently the owner invested 1 million euros in the remodeling which left it looking fantastic. It's also located on the back side of the modern art gallery and shares a beautiful setting.

We slept at a girl named Milica's apartment. She works with ISIC (international student organization) and Kristina, who also works with ISIC, made the connection. Milica and her boyfriend, Vladimir, met us at the Boss Cafe. Turns out Vladimir was an exchange student in Ohio and spoke fantastic English (he's also been accepted to a college in Tennessee). We hung out with them for a while before going to bed.

The following morning we walked around the city before hooking back up with Vladimir and heading to Palic. Palic is a lake on the edge of Subotica which has a nice town featuring many art nouveau buildings. We sunbathed and drove a peddle-powered boat around the lake. The lake is pretty filthy owing to the fact that the Subotica sewer flowed directly into the lake for a long time. Thankfully there's a campaign to clean up the lake.

After leaving the lake we dropped Vladimir off at his place and drove back to Belgrade.

Today Mateja and I met up with one of his university friends and one of her friends. We walked around the city, got bitten by a ton of mosquitoes and sat at another one of the boat cafes. The weather was fantastic. Last night it poured rain but today was sunny and warm without being stiflingly hot.

I was impressed by the significant changes Belgrade has experienced since I was here in 2005 (I spent one night here in 2006 but it doesn't count because I was a. ridiculously jet-lagged and b. I went straight from the airport to Mateja's apartment south of the old town). Evidence of investment in infrastructure and city beautification abounds. Much of the old town looks like any other major European city (though there are very few buildings that one would describe as groundbreakingly-beautiful). Serbia's GDP per capita has grown by about 40% since 2005 as well - a very good sign for their economy.

Unfortunately, most investment is happening in Belgrade and Vojvodina. The south's infrastructure is somewhat atrophied. However, there's a ton of potential down there so hopefully somebody will get it together.

Tomorrow morning we're setting off for Vojvodina. It's a region that I've now passed through twice without stopping off. We're staying with a girl who works with ISIC (the international student organization) who lives in Subotica (Su-bo-tee-tsa). Apparently Subotica is a very attractive small town and has a bunch of Art Nuveau architecture. Then, in the morning we're heading to Novi Sad. It also apparently has a bunch of cool architecture. When we get back to Belgrade I'm going to attempt to make Mexican food for Mateja and Kristina (and maybe Mateja's mom if she's in Belgrade but she might be in Eastern Serbia working on some economic development project...).

I might not check in for a day or two. Just letting you know.

Made it to Beograd tonight. It's a little bit cooler here in the city than it was in Nis last night. However, it's more humid so... yeah. Mateja's flat in Beograd is on the top floor of a tall apartment building so it gets scorching hot during the day - at least from everything that I've heard from Mateja, his brother and their mother.

Today we went to the Nis flea market - many people were there selling items that hold no value whatsoever and are basically just candidates for recycling. The scale of poverty in southern Serbia is more well understood from that vantage point. Hopefully somebody will invest something in the local economy.

Before lunch I stopped by a cafe with Mateja, Andreja and Andreja's friend for some espresso. While there some 40-something Serb at the next table overheard me and mentioned that his brother lives in San Diego. He continued on saying that every American is at least 20% Serb, the Potomac (River) is a Serb word and numerous other ridiculous claims. When Mateja laughed he said "Well, you might not believe me but it's printed in a very good source: The Third Eye". The Third Eye is a tabloid similar to the Weekly World News. Completely ridiculous.

For the past five days I've been giving a lot of thought to the problems facing Serbia as time marches forward. Primarily I tend to view political and social ills as best solved through economic means. However, Serbia isn't producing many competitive products and European integration, right now, might destroy the domestic economy (at least according to my contacts here). Much foreign investment seems to be committed via fairly neoliberal methods - invest only as much as it necessary to extract primary goods from an economy and leave as little of the profit behind as possible. What Serbia needs is solid investment in it's domestic economy, specifically small businesses. Despite the fact that the government of Serbia is considerably less corrupt than it was just a few short years ago there is no disputing the fact that there are serious barriers to entry into the economy, likely due to corrupt dealings between politicians and tycoons. I'd like to see low interest loans offered to small businesses here, or perhaps business partnerships set up between foreign investors and local business people that would see the bulk of the profits derived from the business dealings stay in Serbia. Had I the investment capital I think I could make a nice living for myself while helping sectors of the Serbian economy move forward in ways that they currently are not.

Just my two cents...

In other news: It's hot hot hot here. Strange that a week ago I had to wear a sweatshirt outside and now I almost can't go outside lest I begin to melt. We've been spending the bulk of the day indoors, usually only venturing out into the city after 5pm.

Last night was a lot of fun. We caught a few drinks with some of Mateja's friends - Dusan (Dushan) and Darko. Darko is a low-level official for the pro-Europe center-left Serbian Democratic party, the current ruling party of Serbia and the party of Boris Tadic. Mateja and I have a more distinctly left-wing perspective so it was interesting to get the take of a member of the Democratic party on the development of Serbia. One nice thing is that the right wing Radical Party imploded following the last elections and now the leading right-wing party in Serbia is a center-right pro-European integration party. Serbia seems to have officially left behind it's history of isolationism and embraced democracy. It's a very impressive fact.

After that we bought some beer and headed down to the banks of the Nisava (Nis river) with a few of Milos's English-student friends. I engaged in a very interesting debate with one of the students. He repeated the line I've heard many times before: Yugoslavia was an "unnatural state" in which "people who never wanted to live with one-another were forced to".

I have a hard time swallowing that take on Yugoslav history. One thing to note is that during World War 2 it was the communist and multi-ethnic Partisans, led by Josip Broz Tito, who beat back the Nazis, Croatian fascist Ustashe and Serbian pro-monarchist Chetniks, among other groups. The partisans attracted people of all Yugoslav nations in full knowledge that they were working to establish Yugoslavia. This was in the face of the fact that the allies initially supported Chetniks and the Nazis supported the Ustashe. Who, then, appears to have garnered the largest amount of public support during the war? The partisans.

In addition to that fact most of the resistance movements started by Croatians and Slovenes living under Austro-Hungarian rule and Serbs and Macedonians living under Ottoman rule were created with the explicit goal of uniting the south Slavic people.

Also, Ante Markovic, a professed Yugoslav and pro-unionist, was the most popular politician in 1980's Yugoslavia. Milosevic used dirty tricks to destroy Markovic's political future. Milosevic did not, in general, enjoy popular support. It's also worth mentioning that Serbia had an ~80% military desertion rate during the 1990's (and in larger cities that rate was closer to 95%) which tends to suggest that there was not popular support for the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, nobody had the political capital to resist Milosevic and his cronies and Yugoslavia became the victim of shock-capitalism and warfare. Serbia lost more than a decade of potential economic growth. Had Yugoslavia remained a unified state they would have walked straight into the European Union, been on the Euro by now and been one of the largest voting blocks in Europe. As it stands now they are a fractured group of small states with economies still trying to figure out how to catch up with much of the rest of Europe. Such a different story from the post-WW2 era Yugoslavia which experienced the fastest rate of industrialization and economic growth in the world. It's a very unfortunate story.

I'm at a cafe and just saw something very sad - a small Roma boy, probably not more than 3 years of age, was sent by his mother to beg at our table. Poverty is a very serious issue among this long-underpresentented people. It's heartening to know that Serbia has taken significant steps to integrate these people but to see a group so far-removed from the social mainstream to feel they have to resort to sending their 3-year-old to ask for handouts is depressing.

Hey everybody! Quick update to alert you to the constant stream of photographs. In case you haven't noticed I've uploaded pictures from Sarajevo, Mostar, Dubrovnik and other places. In the update today are photos from Milos's birthday party, pictures from Jelasnica (the village in which Milos lives), and pictures of a Nazi-occupied Yugoslav banknote from 1943. Check them out.

I'm working on a post about our 6-day journey through Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia and Montenegro. I wanted to get it out while it was fresh but I didn't have the opportunity. I'll condense it into a manageable size for you all and upload it shortly.

We're off to Mateja's grandmother's house for lunch now. Serbian beans and more cevapi (fourth day in a row!).