Tag Archives: serbia

The Serbian Royal Palace

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I took a special tour of the Royal Palace this week as part of charity fundraising event. The Princess Katherine’s Foundation is doing a “Children Helping Children” campaign and asked the school to participate. A delegation of our students donated gifts for the impoverished children of Belgrade.

It was an informational and highly interesting tour. I took the photo above of the dome of the church on the palace grounds. Jesus has a bullet hole in his forehead from the Partisans who took over the palace after World War II. The church was used as a storage room at that time and the Royal Family kept some of the artifacts of the history of the place. I especially loved the basement private cinema, which Tito used to watch Westerns back in the day. I sat in his favorite chair.

The tour guide gave us a lot of information about the art works and the history of the rooms in the palace. Currently the Serbian government owns everything, but allows the Royal Family to live in an apartment on the grounds. It is a huge piece of land in Dedinje and the Karadjordjevic Family has refurbished much of the palace. It is quite spectacular and a fascinating place. I highly recommend a visit. The rooms below are done in a Russian style because the family gave refuge to Russian architects and artists fleeing the Bolsheviks. They were allowed to design many rooms. There are also spectacular views and every room has a story.

The Russian Rooms

I also received an invitation to the State Funeral of King Peter, which will take place next month. I’ll definitely blog on the that event. The Royal Family hold no power or political office in Serbia as it is a parliamentary government. We sadly didn’t have time to tour the White Palace on the grounds, but I will definitely come back for that tour.

Royal Palace Views

 

Čestitam!

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nemi and bill, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

Čestitam means congratulations in Serbian and last night I celebrated with my friend, the birth of his nephew. In Serbian tradition and medical practice, when a mother goes into labor, the father cannot be in the operating room. In fact, for several days after the birth, only one visitor to the hospital is allowed at a time. This is very different from the US or Latin America where I was in the operating room with my wife.

So what can the father do? In Serbian tradition he throws a raucous party and guests rip a piece of his shirt for good luck and health. A father may go through several shirts in an evening. If any of my readers can tell me the origins of this tradition, why is this done? I guess if you can’t be there, you might as well have a good time and there is no better reason for a party than a birth of a child.

Nemanja in the picture is not actually the father but the uncle, but the party guests got carried away and ripped three of his shirts as well as shirts of his brother-in-law. I had a great time and need to learn some Serbian folk songs. The accordion player was belting out some traditional songs and I recognized many words, “srce” – heart, but I could only dance and not sing like the rest of the party. I wish Americans celebrated like the Serbs do. We don’t get many occasions where everyone is drinking, singing, and dancing with a live accordion player in the apartment! Such a warm feeling of togetherness!

Congratulations to Nemanja and his family! All the best for many more healthy children!

The Magic of Movies

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I finally wrapped up shooting for the Montevideo sequel last week. They are filming the final game of the Yugoslavian team. They lost to the host Uruguay in the semifinals of the 1930 World Cup. The game was filmed in the beautiful Pink Studios, a large complex located outside of the Belgrade near the airport. The huge complex has nine sound studios and several Hollywood films have been shot there. The most famous movie being The Raven (2012).

The producers made the stadium, field, and locker rooms in the big #2 sound stage. It is a massive room with the green back drop. It was strange to do my parts without seeing a field or game. I watched the raw footage of the scenes before going into the booth.

It was an incredible experience and I thank all the extras, directors, make-up, costume, cameramen, etc. who helped me get through my scenes.

Serbia: Smoking Capital of the World

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In a recent article by the Wall Street Journal Serbia ranked number one in the world in cigarettes sold per capita. Serbia topped all countries with 2,861 cigarettes smoked per capita. They defeated fellow Balkan countries Bulgaria (#2 – 2,822) and Greece (#3 2,795). Eastern Europe took the top eight spots with Russia (#4 – 2,786) and Ukraine (#5 2,401) rounding out the top five.

I thought Serbia would rank pretty high because you see (and smell) smokers all the time. The Serbian government last year put the first laws prohibiting smoking in certain areas and it has improved the climate for non-smokers. I always wondered what percentage of Serbs are regular, pack-a-day smokers. I would guess it would be around 1/3.

Armed with this data point, 2,861 cigarettes per person, I did a bit more mathematics. If the population of Serbia is 7,276,604 million people, then that would mean almost 21 billion cigarettes were smoked (20,818,364,044). If a pack contains 20 cigarettes, that would be a little over 1 billion packs of cigarettes (1,040,918,202). If you subtract the 14.9 percent of the population that is under the age of 14, that would mean the adult population smoked 166.5 packs per person. If you assume that the average smoker consumes 1 pack per day, that would mean that roughly 50% of Serbs would be considered regular smokers (46.5%). – Note to readers, please correct me if I am wrong on this. I took the population statistics from the CIA World Factbook.

Why do so many Serbians smoke? One reason is the cheap cost of cigarettes, $2 per pack. There are not many restrictions regarding smoking and the recent laws do not go far enough to put a damper on people’s habits. Although I love that the two big shopping malls in the city are now smoke-free, even the cafes. I don’t feel they went strong enough, with most bars and restaurants, still having large smoking areas alongside non-smoking areas. There is not much in public service announcements as well and smoking is not a taboo, like it is in many western countries.

The Wall Street Journal focuses on Russia’s attempts at lowering the smoking rate. I think the time is right for Serbia to tackle smoking. It must be costing the health care system a lot. It is also ironic that a people that look so good (thin, athletic) and are so active, have such a bad health habit as smoking. I hope they can get Serbia out of first place.

 

Serbian Olympic Medalist

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Ivana Maksimovic, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

Today my school had a visit from Ivana Maksimovic, who won a silver medal in this summer’s London Olympic Games. She took second in an event called the Women’s 50 Meter Rifle 3 Positions. This was a bit of a surprise accomplishment for the 22 year old as the number one ranked woman finished sixth in the event.

Olympic medals run in the family as her father, Goran, won the gold medal at the 1988 Olympics and competed in four other Olympics. Her mother is a shooting coach also.

She was very friendly and good with the kids. She even brought her medal and all the kids got to hold it. Ivana was patient in answering questions and she signed a lot of autographs.

I asked her how the Serbian Olympic Committee supported her. She said they paid for some of her training expenses and competitions, and she “couldn’t have done it without them.” She did, however, mention that she had to go to Novi Sad to find a range for the event she won a medal in.

Ocean holds the London 2012 Olympic Silver Medal

It was great she could come by the school and I was happy for Serbia to get another medal at the Olympics. We’ll she how she does at the 2016 Olympics in Rio. After watching all the Olympics this summer, my kids were thrilled to hold the medal and to meet a real Olympian.

Halloween (Noć Vištica)

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The kids loved all the Halloween parties this weekend! The holiday, known as “Night of the Witches” in Serbian is not celebrated in Serbia, but in our expatriate circles and the international school, it is one of the most anticipated events of the year. Kids get so excited to dress up and trick or treat and even the non-American parents, get into the spirit of the event and dress up as well.

On Friday night the kids attended the school Halloween party (photo above). Owen’s outfit was from the obscure movie “Tron”, Oliver was Iron Man, and Ocean was a princess.

The Canadian Embassy hosts a costume party every year and Nadia and I went with friends again this year. Our friend Claudiu brought costumes from the USA and we went with traditional Bavarian folk costumes. We had a lot of laughs and one of the best things about the night, is the costumes allow strangers to interact with one another. Everyone has their “act” with their costume or we try to guess what they are dressed as.

Nadia, Bill, and Charmaine

The fun continued on Saturday evening with the American colony, Banovo Brdo, hosting a trick-or-treat and party. The kids went around to many of the homes in the gated community. Then Robert and Julie turned their home into a Halloween Amusement Park with decorations, food/drink, and a haunted walk in their yard. Absolutely brilliant and I would like to give them a big thank you! The kids ran around and laughed and had a blast.

A special part of the evening was Ocean losing her first tooth. She was so excited that her tooth just fell out. Nadia luckily found the tooth on the ground and the tooth fairy left 200 RSD for Ocean last night. My angel princess is so beautiful!

Picnic in Vršac

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“Ping and Pong”, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

Picnicking is quite popular in Serbia. I think the fact that most Serbians live in apartments and don’t have much green space outside their homes, makes the locals want to get out a bit in nature. I love to go out with the family and spend an afternoon outdoors with a picnic lunch or a BBQ in the backyard.

Last Sunday we drove up to Vršac, a city of around 40,000 people located in the Banat region of the Vojvodina province. The Banat is a flat plain located in Hungary, Romania, and Serbia. Vršac is near the border of Serbia and Romania. We planned to picnic near a monastery but found it quite run down, so we found a spot in the vineyards outside the city. There are several good wineries in the region. It turned out to be really nice. We played a lot of baseball and Nadia made some delicious chicken sandwiches. Nadia and Ocean also caught some late summer sun, laying on the blanket.

After we were done eating, we went up to the famous tower of the city. As you can see in the photo below, the Banat is quite flat except for the vrh (summit in Serbian) in the city. Because of its strategic position, there was always a fortress on the top. We walked up to the fort to enjoy the beautiful views. The kids liked to climb on the crumbling walls of the ruins. The tower is being renovated and there was also a paragliding runway at the top.

It was a really nice day trip out of Belgrade. We didn’t visit any of the wineries, but might do it the next time we are in town. The city center is quite nice too, good for walking around.

Apricots – Kajsija

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Another of Belgrade’s summer pleasures are apricots. Nadia is shown with several I picked from a tree in our yard. We’ve been eating a lot of them and Nadia made the best jam preserve with 12 kilos I bought from the Senjak market.

Apricots have been around a long time so the origin of the tree is a bit unclear. The scientific name (Prunus armeniaca) indicates they originated in Armenia, but there are experts who theorize India, and China as well. It is a member of the plum family and the common name, apricot, comes from Pliny The Elder, the Roman naturalist over 2000 years ago.

The apricot is high in antioxidants and fiber, so it is very healthy to eat. It is supposed to reduce bad cholesterol so I try to eat them daily while they are in season.

After my run yesterday, I stuck my head under the hose and looked up and saw the tree. I picked an apricot and it was absolutely delicious. It may have been a runner’s high, but I paused to acknowledge the refreshing taste of the apricot, or the Armenian plum!

In Serbian they are known as kasija, and of course, the Serbs distill an excellent brandy from the fruit, known as kajsijevača.

Tara National Park: My Favorite Place in Serbia

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We spent four glorious days in the Tara National Park. The park is in the Dinaric Alps, a limestone mountainous area with deep ravines, rocky outcrops, turquoise rivers, and thousands of tall pines. It is only a three-hour drive from Belgrade and we rented an apartment in Kaluđerske Bare (Monk Pond), a small town inside the park. The peaks get up to around 5,000 feet and the park is located on the border with Bosnia i Herzegovina.

The kids had a wonderful time and each day we went hiking. The views are spectacular and the kids just love running in the meadows and picking up sticks and rocks under the towering pine and beech trees. I love the mix of farmland and wilderness of the park. The distinctive haystacks and Serbian traditional wooden farmhouses with green meadows of rolling hills, make for a idyllic, bucolic setting. I am also impressed with the amount of old growth trees all over the park. Big trees are one of the few things I feel spiritual about, and the mountain air, the quietness, and green, really refreshes my psyche.

I am trying to instill in my children a love for wilderness and an interest in natural history and ecological field studies. We identified many flowers, insects, birds, and trees and descriptions of these can be found on my Serbian Nature web site.

This was the first time we spent significant time inside the park. In previous visits, we stayed outside the park in the town of Mokra Gora. We will definitely go back.

When There Were No Serbians in Serbia

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Owen and Ollie at the Baths, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

Earlier this month we visited the ancient ruins of the city of Viminacium. (Viminacijum in Serbian) The city was founded by the Romans around the birth of Jesus. Viminacium on the Danube River, close to the modern Serbian town of Kostolac, about an hour’s drive from Belgrade.

Viminacium in its peak had an estimated 40,000+ citizens. Many of the famous Roman Emperors visited or stayed in the city. Several battles in the many civil wars of the Roman Empire occurred there as well. The Romans established the city first as a military garrison while conquering the local Illyrians (Dacians) and later a market town grew up around the barracks.

We arrived late in the day and the site was closing. We still drove around to the excavated sites and got a sense of the place. Most of the city is not excavated, only 3 major sites, which are covered (see above). Researchers have found 35,000 graves, coins, vases, etc. The city was eventually overrun and destroyed by the man himself, Attila the Hun in 441 C.E. The Avars (ancient Turkish tribe) finished the job in 582, paving the way for the Slavs (Serbs) to come in an eventually settle the area.

It was amazing to think about all that went on there, such a long time ago! I hope they develop the project further, there is probably a lot that needs to be excavated and researched. The structures uncovered are not that impressive, no coliseums, statues of Caesar, etc, but I think they could make an excellent museum and educational center with the pieces they found. They had several books for sale in the visitor center with photos and information about the site, but no actual pieces displayed. We also so some chariots which would have been cool for the kids to ride in. I just don’t see the funds available to further carry on the work.

Perhaps the coal company operating next to the site can support excavation. There is a massive open pit coal mine there as well as a coal-burning electricity generation plant. It would be nice to tax those polluters and put the proceeds towards Viminacium. We will probably head back to the site and read some more about it.

Nadia in front of the Drmno Coal Mine

On a side note, the town of Stari Kostolac (Old Kostolac), close to the site, is a Roma or Gypsy village. We were driving back from the site through their and Nadia was freaking out when she saw the run-down settlement and only gypsies. I would also like to go back and explore the town a bit more. A friend told us the village used to be Serbian, but was abandoned and the Roma moved in.

It makes a good day trip from Belgrade.