Tag: Balkans Page 1 of 2

Due to our relative lack of understanding of the political situation, our best laid plans were waylaid this morning. Looking at a rail map, the best clear route from Pristina to the real rail network, and east to Istanbul is through Nis, a city in Serbia. At the Pristina bus station yesterday, I was told there wasn’t a bus to Nis, but I thought they meant that day, not ever. Finding a person who spoke more than a little english, we were able to piece together that the bus doesn’t go through that border crossing. My requests were something like asking to go from Jerusalem to Gaza on public transit, without understanding that it simply isn’t done. So, lesson learned, we took a bus to Skopje, Macedonia, from where we can catch a train to Nis and parts beyond.

Skopje is a stellar example of Communist architecture. The city was virtually destroyed in an earthquake in the 1960’s, and rebuilt in the style of the period, to the delight of architecture buffs, but probably the detriment of the citizens. The opera and ballet house has been described as just like the one in Syndey, except square. Hannah and I spent the day in our conspicuously clean but slightly creepy HI hostel, and ventured out after the heat of the day to find sustenance in the form of food, phones and internet. One down, two to go.

Got to Kosovo yesterday morning on an overnight bus, and am mostly recovering from the late night border crossings. Crossed from Bosnia to Serbia at about 2am; everyone got off the bus to smoke, and I urinated on the junkyard right next to the border. Then we piled back in the bus and tried to sleep for a few more hours, until we got to the Kosovar border.

On the Serbian side, which they don’t recognize as an international crossing, there is a small shack with two policemen and a tiny car. On the Kosovar side, there is a row of barbed wire, sandbags, and armored personnel carriers. The border is actually staffed by UN officials (the guy who checked my passport was Kenyan, and the guy who checked the bus for drugs was Bangledeshi), and the troops are NATO. They stamped UNMIK on a separate sheet from my passport, as there can be issues re-entering Serbia with what they consider this illegitimate stamp.

Got to Pristina and were dead tired from the lack of sleep and uncomfortable seats. Found a taxi driver to take us to “Pansion Professor”, a relatively cheap guest house. The driver agreed, as soon as his friend returned from an errand. Smelling scam, I backed away and started searching for someone else. But just then, another taxi drove up and produced a coke bottle full of gas. The driver poured it into his tank, and we were good to go.

There’s not too much to do in Pristina besides look at the UN buildings and try and figure out how to get inside. We did stop by where we think Chris Hammond works, but the guard didn’t believe our (admittedly shaky) story. Went out for Chinese food, as Hannah and I are bored by the Balkan standard meat, filo dough and yogurt combinations. Seriously, I have eaten so much yogurt. Yogurt drink for breakfast with burek, yogurt for bread dipping at lunch, and yogurt on top of veal burger for dinner. I love yogurt!

Today we took a bus to Gracanica, a Serbian enclave inside Kosovo, and the home of a 14-th century monastary covered in frescoes. I found it more impressive than the much more famous Giotto chapel in Padua. It is guarded by NATO, Swedes in this case, because there has been anti-Serb violence in the past.

Then we found a taxi to take us to the Gadime caves, which are not particularly spectacular compared to some of the other caves I’ve seen, but a welcome change from the church-mosque-museum beat. The stalactites all grow at strange angles, which is apparently something special. Our guide spoke “not so much” English, but was happy to tell us the same three things over again. Still, nice to be out of the sun and somewhere cool for half an hour.

For our afternoon in Pristina, we wandered to the Kosovar Museum, which has a great collection of pre-Medival finds from the area. Here, as in Israel, archaeology is profoundly political, as each side tries to find a historical basis to their claims. The museum captions were pretty one sided, but shows how the Illyrians turned into the Albanians at the fall of the Roman empire, and how they successfully defended the area from the Slavic “barbarians”. Sadly, the collection is mostly missing, as they transferred the best stuff to Belgrade for safe keeping from the NATO bombing campaign, and then the Serbs refused to give it back. There is a large poster pleading for help from the UN, which doesn’t seem to be forthcoming.

Hanging out at the hostel tonight, as Hannah and I feel pretty done with this place. Having a hobo dinner of pasta, tuna and weeks old pesto. One more bus ride to Nis, and then a train to Istanbul. The crusaders march on!

Got an early train from Mostar, through incredible mountain valleys, along the ice blue Nerevata River. Didn’t see any men plowing fields with oxen, as Jani did on her trip here in the 70’s, but we did see some Monet style haystacks.

Sarajevo is bustling on this Saturday morning, and we strolled along the cobbled Ferhadija with seemingly the entire town. Hannah got a B&H soccer jersey, and I pondered getting one of the mounted machine guns at the “War Museum”, which was really just a souvenir shop in disguise. I did actually get the FAMA Guide to Sarajevo from the 1992 seige, but it’s clearly a recent reprint. Still, an interesting cultural artifact. We also walked across the bridge on which Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand, sparking WWI. The guidebook says that their footprints used to be encased in the pavement, but were removed in the 90’s, as Princip was deemend a terrorist, and a Bosnian at that.

Hannah sat and watched two men play chess in a park, surrounded by a gaggle of old men providing commentary. She made a friend, and they traded chess tips, although they did not share a common language. She was actually the only woman in sight, a fact that seemed to cause some of the old guys alarm, but when I showed up and took pictures everyone was happy.

Waiting around now to catch an overnight bus to Pristina, Kosovo. Our guidebook says that it wasn’t safe to update as of the last printing (2006), but we checked out more recent guides in a bookstore, and they seem to think it’s fine. Besides, who wouldn’t want to go see a UN protectorate? I love those blue helmets…

After an early morning bus ride, we left Croatia and entered Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sadly, we didn’t get an extra stamp, as the border consisted of them seeing our US passports, and waving us along. Didn’t have lodging booked ahead of time, as my accumulated off by one errors have caused me enough grief and extra expense that I’m inclined to wing it. A nice old lady came at us off the bus, and we followed her to our spartan digs. Hey, for 10 euros a night, I’m not going to complain. It’s actually right next to the place I was going to book, so it has that going for it.

Mostar was one of the cities most damaged architecturally by the war, and while the Old Bridge has been rebuilt, and the tourist area is thriving, the old front line is still clearly visible. We bought an engraved 50 cal shell. Feels a bit like war tourism, but the old man who made it seemed happy enough to take our money.

Sat and watched divers plunge from the Old Bridge 60 feet to the frigid water below, proving their machismo and garnering tips from passersby. They are real showmen, and stand on the edge for a long time until they have enough to jump. I tossed in my Bosnian change, but apparently they prefer foreign currency. Still took it, though.

As we are rather churched out, it has been interesting watching the appearance of mosques. We also went to a Turkish house, which was nicely appointed, but probably only a shadow of things to come.

Still taking pictures of particularly quenching mugs of beer. So Ruth, this Sarajevsko’s for you.

After walking around looking for burek (the typical Balkan meat filled pastry), we stumbled upon a performance by a local student band. It seemed to be part of some summer program, run by the “Brass Brothers”, a group of old guys from Sweden and Norway. They did a stirring rendition of Blueberry Hill, and some Bosnian classics, which we didn’t recognize, but everyone else did. On the way home we passed all sorts of hotties going out to ze clubs, but we had an early train to catch, so I’ll have to wait to get my dance on.