From Sarajevo to Serbia to Kosovo
I'm getting caught up on some writing from the trip. It was a real bitch to type on some of the foreign keyboards and sometimes there just wasn't enough time. Here is a bit about the trip to Serbia and Kosovo in mid-November.
Before I left for Serbia, Bosnian friends advised me to be low-key about being an American. There are some hard feelings toward America because U.S.-led NATO strikes hit the Serbs three times during the Balkan wars. I took a shuttle to Belgrade instead of the bus. After the ride to Srebrenica, I wasn’t up to another bus ride so soon. I had few worries about traveling to Belgrade, despite well-meant warnings. It surprised me that such misgivings still lingered among the Bosnians. I got it from the Serbs and Kosovars too, only the fear goes much deeper.
The shuttle was a white van driven by Olga, an attractive, tough, middle-age blonde who chain-smoked the whole way. It was like being locked up in one of those ashtrays that trap the smoke for six hours. One of the first things I noticed getting off the train in Belgrade were buttons and trading cards of Slobodan Milosevic, Ratko Mladic and Karadzic, like the war memorabilia sold near the Vietnam and Lincoln memorials. Only these three have been indicted for war crimes for their part in Bosnia’s war. Later I noticed a large photograph of Milosevic mounted on an apartment façade near Republic Square. But I never figured out why it was there. He’s not tremendously popular. I don’t read Cyrillic either, so who knows. I found a cheap place to stay, Hotel Royal, with zebra stripe blanket and satellite TV. After roaming the city until dark, I had a beer which drank half of then smuggled the rest up to my room to watch CNN international. It was just nice to be on my own in a sizeable city for a while.
Before I left for Kosovo, a woman I was chatting with at a Belgrade cafe was visibly upset when I told her I was going there. "Be sure to wear your U.S. passport on your forehead because you look like you could be a Serb girl," she warned. My taxi driver refused to believe me that buses were running to Pristina. The Serbs are surrounded by anxiety-provoking stories stemming from the 1998-1999 Kosovo war and previous attacks against ethnic Serbs in the breakaway province. The Serbs attacked Kosovar Albanians in 1998. That’s when the international community intervened via NATO. They didn’t want another Bosnia on their hands. Then the Albanians turned around and attacked the ethnic Serbs. The intervention wasn’t so swift then. It was all pretty brutal and the land bears witness to the rage. Burned out houses dot the landscape and even the smallest village is split in two between the ethnic communities. I am currently writing a few pieces about how the Balkan wars stemmed, in part, from independence movements, that were made worse by the international community’s intervention. It was too much, too soon. Today, the push by Brussels and Washington to anchor the former Yugoslavian countries to the European Union is setting off tensions because the anxiety of ethnic Serbs are not being considered. Whether their anxiety is founded in reality or not, ignoring their fears won’t solve the problems that led to the wars in the 1990s. Of course, they didn’t have to start ethnically cleansing broad swaths of land where their ethnic brethren lived. The pillaging and killing and burning were definitely not necessary. So, they’re paying the price now because sympathy for them is pretty low.
Actually, the bus ride to Kosovo was a bit strange because the riders were trying to figure out where I came from. I wasn't offering any definitive information, so when they finally found out I was an American at the border checkpoint, they wondered why the hell an American was going to Pristina, the capital city. When I explained my profession they just nodded as if to say, "Ah, of course. A journalist…another journalist..." They weren’t friendly and I got a strange feeling from them. One guy was staring at me the entire trip. When he lay on his back and kept staring at me (oh man! A wanker, I thought) I gave him a look that said, “Do you have a problem?” When he learned I was American he started staring at me AND his UNMIK passport. I couldn’t figure out what he wanted to communicate to me, but I did realize that the Kosovars are neither here nor there. They don’t have their own state, but neither do they belong to Serbia. Not since the war. The province is run as a U.N. protectorate.
Pristina turned out to be a great town in its own way. Residents were kind and warm and friendly. The city smelled like a blend of goat cheese, diesel and the aroma that comes from wood burning in fireplaces. It had that culturally mixed, chaotic feel that Sarajevo and Brussels have. However, the Lonely Planet tour book let me down for the first time there. I don’t really follow the advice closely but the book said Euros and Dinar are accepted. Not so. I landed at 4 a.m. at the deserted Pristina bus station only to be told by the taxi driver that he only took Euros. “No Dinar. Euro only,” he said adamantly. Well, I had two Euros left and the ride cost five. So I cajoled him into taking 450 Dinar and my last Euros. I figured he would do it because there was no one else there to rip off at 4 a.m. But, in Gracinica, a muddy village about 7 miles away where one of the famous Orthodox monasteries is, the Dinar is the currency. Euros are accepted only reluctantly and I had to make a fuss to get my change in Euros instead of Dinar. (I was heading back to Pristina and did not want anymore of the inflated currency that NO one will exchange – not even the Hungarians. When I tried in Bosnia they practically snarled at me.)
I would like to go back to Serbia. I went there dismissive of Serbs and learned that even if I don't want to hear or agree with what I hear it's important to listen. It’s hard to understand their perspective sometimes because sometimes it’s founded on national myths, fear and isolation. But I could say that about a lot of other nations, as well. After all, there are few cities in Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia. Villagers there can be just as backward as Americans in small U.S. towns.
Before I left for Serbia, Bosnian friends advised me to be low-key about being an American. There are some hard feelings toward America because U.S.-led NATO strikes hit the Serbs three times during the Balkan wars. I took a shuttle to Belgrade instead of the bus. After the ride to Srebrenica, I wasn’t up to another bus ride so soon. I had few worries about traveling to Belgrade, despite well-meant warnings. It surprised me that such misgivings still lingered among the Bosnians. I got it from the Serbs and Kosovars too, only the fear goes much deeper.
The shuttle was a white van driven by Olga, an attractive, tough, middle-age blonde who chain-smoked the whole way. It was like being locked up in one of those ashtrays that trap the smoke for six hours. One of the first things I noticed getting off the train in Belgrade were buttons and trading cards of Slobodan Milosevic, Ratko Mladic and Karadzic, like the war memorabilia sold near the Vietnam and Lincoln memorials. Only these three have been indicted for war crimes for their part in Bosnia’s war. Later I noticed a large photograph of Milosevic mounted on an apartment façade near Republic Square. But I never figured out why it was there. He’s not tremendously popular. I don’t read Cyrillic either, so who knows. I found a cheap place to stay, Hotel Royal, with zebra stripe blanket and satellite TV. After roaming the city until dark, I had a beer which drank half of then smuggled the rest up to my room to watch CNN international. It was just nice to be on my own in a sizeable city for a while.
Before I left for Kosovo, a woman I was chatting with at a Belgrade cafe was visibly upset when I told her I was going there. "Be sure to wear your U.S. passport on your forehead because you look like you could be a Serb girl," she warned. My taxi driver refused to believe me that buses were running to Pristina. The Serbs are surrounded by anxiety-provoking stories stemming from the 1998-1999 Kosovo war and previous attacks against ethnic Serbs in the breakaway province. The Serbs attacked Kosovar Albanians in 1998. That’s when the international community intervened via NATO. They didn’t want another Bosnia on their hands. Then the Albanians turned around and attacked the ethnic Serbs. The intervention wasn’t so swift then. It was all pretty brutal and the land bears witness to the rage. Burned out houses dot the landscape and even the smallest village is split in two between the ethnic communities. I am currently writing a few pieces about how the Balkan wars stemmed, in part, from independence movements, that were made worse by the international community’s intervention. It was too much, too soon. Today, the push by Brussels and Washington to anchor the former Yugoslavian countries to the European Union is setting off tensions because the anxiety of ethnic Serbs are not being considered. Whether their anxiety is founded in reality or not, ignoring their fears won’t solve the problems that led to the wars in the 1990s. Of course, they didn’t have to start ethnically cleansing broad swaths of land where their ethnic brethren lived. The pillaging and killing and burning were definitely not necessary. So, they’re paying the price now because sympathy for them is pretty low.
Actually, the bus ride to Kosovo was a bit strange because the riders were trying to figure out where I came from. I wasn't offering any definitive information, so when they finally found out I was an American at the border checkpoint, they wondered why the hell an American was going to Pristina, the capital city. When I explained my profession they just nodded as if to say, "Ah, of course. A journalist…another journalist..." They weren’t friendly and I got a strange feeling from them. One guy was staring at me the entire trip. When he lay on his back and kept staring at me (oh man! A wanker, I thought) I gave him a look that said, “Do you have a problem?” When he learned I was American he started staring at me AND his UNMIK passport. I couldn’t figure out what he wanted to communicate to me, but I did realize that the Kosovars are neither here nor there. They don’t have their own state, but neither do they belong to Serbia. Not since the war. The province is run as a U.N. protectorate.
Pristina turned out to be a great town in its own way. Residents were kind and warm and friendly. The city smelled like a blend of goat cheese, diesel and the aroma that comes from wood burning in fireplaces. It had that culturally mixed, chaotic feel that Sarajevo and Brussels have. However, the Lonely Planet tour book let me down for the first time there. I don’t really follow the advice closely but the book said Euros and Dinar are accepted. Not so. I landed at 4 a.m. at the deserted Pristina bus station only to be told by the taxi driver that he only took Euros. “No Dinar. Euro only,” he said adamantly. Well, I had two Euros left and the ride cost five. So I cajoled him into taking 450 Dinar and my last Euros. I figured he would do it because there was no one else there to rip off at 4 a.m. But, in Gracinica, a muddy village about 7 miles away where one of the famous Orthodox monasteries is, the Dinar is the currency. Euros are accepted only reluctantly and I had to make a fuss to get my change in Euros instead of Dinar. (I was heading back to Pristina and did not want anymore of the inflated currency that NO one will exchange – not even the Hungarians. When I tried in Bosnia they practically snarled at me.)
I would like to go back to Serbia. I went there dismissive of Serbs and learned that even if I don't want to hear or agree with what I hear it's important to listen. It’s hard to understand their perspective sometimes because sometimes it’s founded on national myths, fear and isolation. But I could say that about a lot of other nations, as well. After all, there are few cities in Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia. Villagers there can be just as backward as Americans in small U.S. towns.
posted by A.W. Woodall at 6:52 PM
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