Category Archives: serbia

Posts about the culture, events, language, etc. of Serbia.

Nikola Tesla: The Serbian Steve Jobs

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I just finished reading All About Tesla – How Nikola Tesla Invented the 20th Century by Michael Krause. I have heard much about the scientist and it was good to read a complete biography of him. His picture graces the 100 RSD note and the airport is named after him. The book is a bit dry, but Krause does a good job of covering the details of his life as well as mixing in his personal experience during the research on his life.

The famous "Blue Portrait" of Tesla, circa 1916

I would compare Tesla to Steve Jobs of today, but with bad business sense and a bit of autism/depression in the mix. He was one of the superstars of a new technology, electricity, and fortunes were made as the young industry got its start. It would have been amazing to live at that time, and the book captured the sense of society’s first reaction to electric light. Like the internet and computers of today, it fundamentally changed the way we lived. Before reading the book, I was under the impression that it was Thomas Edison versus Nikola Tesla to determine if direct current (DC) or alternating current (AC) would become the dominate form of electrical circuitry. But in reality, there were many more people involved than just those two. Tesla’s contribution was producing a motor that George Westinghouse used to become rich and have AC be the current of choice. Tesla’s big mistake was selling Westinghouse the patent and not collecting royalties. The generator allowed Westinghouse and then others produce enough power to transport the current over distances. Like Jobs, Tesla was famous for his presentations. He gave lectures all over the world that were known for his showmanship. He wowed crowds with his demonstrations of wireless transfer of electricity to light early fluoresent light bulbs.

Publicity Photo of Tesla in his Colorado Springs Laboratory - circa 1899

Tesla is a “rags to riches” story. His father was an Orthodox priest in a small village in Croatia. Tesla barely got into university in Austria. His uncle pulled some strings and he got in on a military scholarship. Like many peasants in the late 1800s, Tesla fled the Austro-Hungarian Empire (my ancestors did a few years after Tesla left) to go to the US to make his fortune. He eventually became a world-class inventor and scientist, and also a huge celebrity. He lived large, living in luxurious hotels his entire life, and gave lectures demonstrating all sorts of electrical phenomena, like flourescent light bulbs lighting without being plugged in. He was good friends with Mark Twain and other famous personalities. Due to his extravagant living, it was constantly a boom and bust for Tesla. Many venture capitalists like J.P. Morgan, invested in his research and development laboratories, but because he as a wacko and didn’t focus on products that could be sold for a profit, he lost a lot of people a lot of money. The lectures and his articles for New York journals, made him quite a celebrity. He lived life large!

Serbian currency with the measure of magnetic field unit named after him

Tesla did come up with many patents and his ideas were ahead of his time. His ideas contributed to someone else making money in the fields of radio, x-rays, hydro-electric power, remote-controlled submarines, etc. As he got older, he got more out there, focusing all of his experimentation on impossible schemes. He was obsessed with a tower in his lab in New Jersey. He had the idea of a super tower that could send electricity across the world, as well as being a weapon, kind of like a laser death-ray of science fiction. Indeed, many of his ideas were used by science fiction writers of his time. In comics in the 1940s, some writers based their “evil scientist” character on Tesla.

I loved his idea of tapping into the cosmos’ energy, kind of like being able to power devices on cosmic rays or dark matter or the collective consciousness of living beings. Maybe someday this will be a reality.

He had many strange quirks. He was celibate his entire life. He worked insane hours with little sleep (10:30 AM – 5:00 AM) and avoided all sunlight. This led to periods of exhaustion and depression. He had to put pieces of rubber under his bed for a time, because of his hyper bat-like senses wouldn’t let him sleep because he detected the friction of the bed posts and the floor.

He was also proud to be a Serbian and in his later years, the Yugoslavian government supported him. I learned from the book that his name may be Ukrainian, because Tesla is not a typical Serbian surname. He was a fascinating fellow to say the least and Serbia and Yugoslavia should be proud of his contributions to the human race. I really want to go see his museum here in Belgrade. I’ll do a post on my visit there.

If you want to read more about Tesla, there is a lot about him on the internet. This is a link to a New York Times’ article about his New York laboratory, “Wardenclyffe”, which is for sale.

Slatko: A Serbian Delicacy

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My son Oliver is trying a peach slatko last weekend at the restaurant Stari Majdan. Slatko is an interesting traditional Serbian fruit preserve. It is like a jam but with chunky pieces of fruit and it is served with water. It is very sweet and immediately afterward, one needs a sip of water. I guess that is why it is named slatko which means “sweet” in English.

It used to be served to guests when they arrived in a Serbian home. Today, it is only found in rural areas in Serbia or occasionally in green markets in the city. Nadia absolutely loves it and we usually have a jar in the kitchen. I’ve seen that strawberries and figs are the most common types. My friend mentioned a watermelon (lubenica) slatko that I would like to try.

Autumn Colors of Belgrade

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Autumn Colors, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

We are in the peak color season in Belgrade. In Europe, as opposed to my birthplace of Michigan, the colors are mostly yellow. The theory goes that there are more tree species in North America that gives more colors and the ice age killed more of red-producing pigment trees in Europe than in North America. Despite not having the reds and oranges, it is still a beautiful time of year. Above is a photo of a wall at our school.

It was great this morning. I was walking with Ocean to our car and she said, “it is leaf day today.” There were leaves literally falling all over the drive way. It has been great to experience the change of seasons, especially for the kids.

It has also been foggy this week in the mornings. Below is a photo of our yard yesterday morning.

Draža Mihailović – A Serbian Hero

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I saw this well done mural on an old building near the Sava River on a bike ride home from Ada Ciganlija earlier this week. The caption reads as follows:
Živ je Draža - umro nije - dok je sprstva i Srbije!
As long as there is Serbia and the Serbian Spirit – Draža lives!
It pictures Serbian military hero Draža Mihailović. Mihailović fought in four wars in his lifetime. He was a young man in the two Balkan Wars and World War I. Especially in World War I, when there was the very real possibility of the loss of the Serbian nation, he fought on the front lines from Corfu, through Albania and back to Belgrade. He is most remembered for World War II, but I feel he shouldn’t be. He was almost 50 when the Nazis invaded in 1941. He fled the Yugoslav army and led the resistance group called the Chetniks. They differed from the more famous Partizans in that they were mostly ethnic Serbian, loosely supported the Yugoslav King in exile, and avoided direct confrontation with the Germans. Draža believed the German reprisals against Serbian civilians were not worth the minor gains in guerilla attacks. I agree with this and he was waiting for the Allies to eventually come and take out the Nazis.
Unfortunately for him, the Partizans won control of the country after the war and Tito had him put on trial and executed. One research study suggests his body is buried close to the mural, on the entrance of Ada Ciganlija. Mihailović and several of his commanders were dumped in a mass grave in a secret site.
He was used as a source of inspiration by Serbian military groups, both formal and informal in the wars of the Secession of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. This has made him unjustly, a controversial figure even today. It is similar to the World War I battle hymn, March on the Drina , which should be the Serbian national anthem, but due to its use in the wars of the 1990s also, is considered too controversial.
Mihailović’s final words were  ”I wanted much; I began much; but the gale of the world carried away me and my work.”
He lived a hard life to have it disrupted so violently with four major wars. He deserved a better fate than to be executed by the communists. He should be rightly honored for his resistance against outside major powers trying to take over smaller Serbia. Perhaps his ideas of a looser federation of Yugoslavia with stronger autonomy for the ethnic republics would have resulted in a longer existing Yugsolavia.
On a lighter note, he should be depicted on t-shirts more than Che Guevara, the Argentinian bum turned Cuban Revolutionary hero. The beard, glasses, and Šajkača are a very “cool” look for Draža. I’ll look to see if I can find his image on a t-shirt or make my own.

Košava Winds

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Đerdap National Park, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

The past two days here in the Belgrade the famous Košava winds have been blowing through the city. The winds are caused by a air pressure gradient between the Adriatic Sea (low air pressure) and southern Russia (high air pressure). Air moves from high pressure to the low pressure. In between Russia and the Adriatic are the beautiful Carpathian Mountains. Above is a photo of the southern Carpathians that form a steep gorge on the Danube River. It is the famous Đerdap National Park, or Iron Gates. It is about an hour’s drive from Belgrade. As the air moves from Russia westward towards the Adriatic, it is funneled through this gorge. On the other side of this gorge is Belgrade.

I can sure feel when the Košava is blowing! It is good that they clean out the city of pollution. They are bad in that they significantly lower the temperature in the non-summer months, especially winter.

When I took this photo in 2009, I was only admiring the beauty of the park. Now I realize that it causes a focus and acceleration of the cold northerly wind known as the Košava.

The locals claim it either blows for 1,3,5 days and they all believe it. It sounds like superstition as it doesn’t make sense for the cause of the winds, massive air pressure systems, to move out of the area in increments of an odd number of days. If a meteorologist can give me some background on this, I would appreciate it.

So far this time, it is the third day as I write this. The Košava is strongest in the morning, so I’ll see if this is the last day it blows.

Yugoslavia’s Alcatraz

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The death of Momar Ghadafi last week has me thinking of dictators. His 42-year reign did not end well with “rebels” finding him in a storm sewer under a road and beating him and then executing him. This is much different than here in Serbia with the end of their Yugoslavian Dictator, Tito. His 37-year reign ended with a state funeral and honors. Many still regard him as hero, not only for his exploits in World War II, but also for keeping Yugoslavia together and more prosperous than its Warsaw Pact neighbors. Does he qualify as a dictator?

For anyone to keep power that long however you want to look at his time as Prime Minister/President. Tito did have his repressive measures to keep control. During my trip to the Adriatic last week, I read the book, “Goli Otok: Hell in the Adriatic” by Josip Zoretic. Goli Otok is an island off the coast of Croatia that for many years during the Communist period of Yugoslavia was a prison for political dissenters and for ordinary criminals. It is notorious for the harshness of the conditions for prisoners.The book is written by Zoretic, a Croatian born in Slovenija, who served 7 years on the island from 1962-1969. He was sent to “barren island” as it is translated to English for fleeing Yugoslavia. (note- Please help me Serbian readers, I learned that the word for island was “ostrvo”, why “otok?”

Zoretic was captured in Austria and sent back. He writes in the book that he fled the country because he could not find a job. According to him, his father refused to join the Partizan army during the World War II resistance. He also didn’t join the Chetniks, the other resistance group. Zoretic’s father was executed and tossed into an infamous deep cavern called “Jazovka” near the Slovenian and Croatian border. He was one of the lucky ones, because many Croatians taken there by the Partizans were tossed in alive, only to die slowly hundreds of meters below the earth on the remains of the dead. Zoretic didn’t know the full background of the story if his father was a collaborator with the Ustaše or just an ordinary civilian who didn’t want to participate on any side in the conflict. Recall that the Ustase were the Croatian Nazi collaborators in World War II.

Because of his father’s background, Zoretic couldn’t start a career and find jobs or enter training programs in the Partizan-controlled Yugoslavia. Talk about suffering for the sins of your father. He eventually got to leave Yugoslavia after serving out his sentence.  He wrote the book while in exile in Canada and I read where his son is raising money to produce a film based on the book.

The photo above is not the island of Goli Otok, but of Lokrum Island, located just off the coast of Dubrovnik, Croatia. It is a similar island and we visited Dubrovnik last year. It will give the reader a sense of what the place looked like.We didn’t get over to visit the island, which I don’t think is a tourist attraction. It would be good to restore the island. It is not as famous as the American island prison Alcatraz. Unlike Alcatraz, prisoners occasionally escaped but it was dangerous and difficult. I hope they do preserve the island as it has been left to ruin and an important part of history is being forgotten.

The book was an engaging read, as Zoretic described daily life in the prison. I was a bit put off by his “Greater Serbia” conspiracy theory. The Secret Police Chief under Tito at the time was a Serbian named Aleksander Ranković. He was the top Serb in Tito’s regime and was accused by the author of unfairly favoring Serbs when it came to sentencing.The guards were quite sadistic and cruel and I don’t understand how anyone could act that way towards another human being. Zoretic mentioned that some of them after leaving employment on the island were attacked on the mainland because people heard of the conditions on the island.

Goli Otok is a sad chapter in the history of Yugoslavia. It is a reminder to us all that humans can treat each other cruelly and the opression of the Tito-led communist Yugoslavia. I recommend the book anyone interested in learning more about Yugoslavia.

Vojvodina Retreat

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Last weekend I went on a retreat with the High School Student Council. We stayed at the Majkin Salaš, which is similar to a country bed and breakfast. Salaš means ranch or farm in the Vojvodina dialect of Serbian. Vojvodina is the northern autonomous province of Serbia. In a geological timescale, it was a sea and today is called the Pannonian Plain. It looks like Iowa or Illinois or southern Michigan, being very flat and full of agricultural fields.

The Majkin Salaš has rooms, a conference center, a swimming pool and a working farm with a pond. They have a huge apple orchard and they were harvesting last weekend. The apples were delicious and I even harvested some. As you can see, we also rode the horses a bit. The Salaš is only about 12 miles from the Hungarian border.
We went to the famous Lake Palić, which is nearby. It is a shallow lake with very poor water quality. I wanted to go swimming in the lake but the water was so green with algae that it was not suitable for swimming. In researching about studies done on the lake, the algae growth is caused by high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus. These nutrients come from agricultural fertilizer run-off and treated wastewater being flushed into the lake. The lake is about 900 acres in area but only has a maximum depth of 2 meters. There is a lovely park on the shores and bike path. We rented bikes and had a good time on a perfect late summer day. The town of Palić on the shores of the lake has a Hungarian majority population and the architecture reflected that. If I was in the area, I would come back but I wouldn’t make a special trip, unless the kids wanted to ride their bikes around the lake.

Lake Palić

Koča Popović: Yugoslav Hero

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My neighborhood in Dedinje is full of interesting stories. I wish I understood Serbian better because I would write a book on the fascinating history of this part of the city. Dedinje is the diplomatic enclave and richest part of the city and is full of beautiful villas with ample grounds and interesting stories that mirror the history of Serbia.

My neighbors were telling me the story of the house in this photograph. The home shares our driveway and his hidden by the trees around it. It is the former family home of Konstatin “Koča” Popović. He was a heroic officer in the Partizan Army and later served as the Foreign Minister for Yugoslavia. Popović was from a rich, “industrialist” family so I assume that this is the family home. He was not only a brave soldier that fought in the Spanish Civil War and World War II, but he was an intellectual. He was a writer, photographer, and artist.

The neighbor said that there is still a caretaker in the servant house and I do see an old lady from time to time as well as a dog, leaving via the front door. I would love to find out more about the house. Popovic is a Yugoslav hero who bravely fought the Germans and his archives are at the National Library.

I wonder what the house looks like inside? Did he leave any heirs? Why is the house look abandoned? Any of my readers have any answers for me? I will be asking my Serbian friends about him and will definitely post what I find out.

Historic Flag At Libyan Embassy

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Rebel Flag , originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

I noticed that the rebels flag was raised this weekend at the Libyan Embassy here in Belgrade. I wonder who put it up? The “rebels” are moving in to the capital Tripoli, Gadhafi’s family is leaving the country, and it sounds like he is making a last stand in his home village. There still may be weeks or months of fighting in Libya, but it does look like there will be a change in government.

It is odd however that the official Libyan flag, which is all green, was taken down and the tri-color rebel flag put up. If Gadhafi approved the Ambassador and staff here, they quickly switched sides. I wonder who decided to raise this flag instead of the official one? Are all Libyan Embassies throughout the world changed the flag already?

Gadhafi was a terrible president for the country. I don’t have much hope for a good government coming from the rebels either however. Libya is cursed with oil reserves and as with most nations with oil, it doesn’t bring prosperity and a democratic society. I hope the rebels after they are done fighting, travel to Norway and see how they managed their oil money. Norway is one of the few countries that has been able to use its fossil fuel income to better its society. It has done so by basically putting most of the income in a trust fund and slowly selling its reserves. Having lived in Venezuela, another OPEC nation, I don’t have much hope for Libya…

Perfect Summer Day

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Sunday we had a perfect summer day in the “dog days” of August. The weather has been very hot and so we began the day with a refreshing swim at the Kosutnjak Public Pool. We then drove out to the village of Beli Potok, located on the slopes of Mount Avala, just south of Belgrade. We ate at the Stari Majdan (Old Mine) restaurant. As you can see, they provided plenty of food. The restaurant is in an old quarry and is oddly shaped. The compound has two artificial turf tennis courts as a bonus. We played a set after lunch. The views overlooking Šumadija, the hilly, forested region were spectacular. I recommend a visit, especially if you are visiting Avala.

Stari Majdan Came Through with a Delicious Lunch

On the way home we bought a ripe watermelon (lubenica) and played volleyball with the kids in the back yard. Nothing better than a juicy watermelon on a plastic chair in the middle of the yard on a super hot day. It was the last day of summer holidays so we put the kids to bed a bit earlier than usual. It is soothing to listen to the crickets in the evening from the window of our balcony. Ah, the days of summer…

Ocean notices the plums

Also loved the huge vats of šliva (plums) they had on display at the restaurant. The plums are used to make the Serbian national drink, šlivavica, a distilled alcoholic beverage made from plums. Distilled beverages from a variety of fruits are very popular in the Balkans and are called rakijas in general. My favorites are the rakijas flavored with honey and walnuts. I wonder how many bottles they can get from one of these vats.