Nadia, Owen and I are excited for our first ATP Finals tomorrow. We will be attending the Novak Djokovic, err, excuse me, Serbia Open. I joke that it should be called the Novak Open as he bought the rights to the Dutch Open tourney and moved it to his hometown of Belgrade. Thankfully, he didn’t disappoint his family and the home crowd and made it to the finals. Unfortunately, all the Serb players ended up in the same side of the draw and Djokovic cruised through defeating two Serbs, including the second highest ranked Serb, Victor Trocki (#40 in the world). It was almost like a Davis Cup practice. Tonight he got by the Italian, Andreas Seppi, but lost one set.
He will be taking on a “Lucky Loser” named Lukasz Kubot, from Poland. He is the first Polish player in an ATP final in 27 years. The term lucky loser means that Kubot lost in the qualifying rounds to get into the tourney, but due to an injury, was the alternate and got to enter the main singles draw. Only 5 lucky losers have won ATP events in the last 30 years. Lukasz is a decent doubles player, with one ATP doubles title, and he is currently ranked #22 in doubles, but #179 on the singles tour. After catching a lucky break to get into the tourney, he got another one when #25 ranked Russian Igor Andreev, withdrew in the first set of their second round match. This afternoon he defeated world #24, Ivo Karlovic, the 6 foot 10 inch big server from Croatia. For Kubot, with a career singles record of 15-16, this was the biggest win of his career. The 26 year old will have the biggest match of his career tomorrow.
Kubot from today's win in the semifinals. (photo courtesy of the Serbia Open)
Does Kubot have a chance tomorrow? His only hope is that Djokovic played late tonight and played three sets, and he might be tired tomorrow afternoon. Will Novak be over confident? Kubot has to be happy already with getting this far and the guaranteed 40,000 Euros. Will his luck continue?
I predict a straight sets victory for Djokovic, and if Kubot wins 6 games in the two sets, he should still consider himself lucky.
With our finals tickets, we also have access to the doubles final. I see that tonight, Kubot won again and he will be playing in the doubles final as well with partner Oliver Marach.
There are many little challenges in living in a country other than your own. When we bought a car this year, we needed to fill it up with gasoline. I pull up to a gas station and see these choices of fuel. Which one is for my car?
I immediately eliminated the two choices with “dizel” which is a cognate of diesel. My car is a 1996 Honda Odyssey and requires unleaded gasoline. So what is the difference between the two premium choices? I usually trusted the attendant, as in Serbia, there is no self-service.
I did a bit a research on line and found out that the “BMB” is unleaded fuel and “MB” is leaded fuel. I am surprised that Serbia still uses leaded gasoline. This was phased out in the US in the 1970’s and across much of the world. Leaded gasoline is still used in less developed nations like Afghanistan, Fiji, Iraq, etc. There are three of the former Yugoslavia nations (Bosnia, Macedonia, and Serbia) still using leaded fuel.
Expats to Serbia always complain about people smoking, but rarely do I hear them complain about leaded gasoline. I wonder what the health effects are, especially with my children. We live in relatively traffic free area, but we must still be exposed to lead in the air.
I’ll definitely do some more research on the topic. If any readers of my blog have any thing to add to the discussion, please do so.
I must remember then, to put “BMB” in my car as that is the Unleaded Gasoline. A mnemonic to use is “un” is one extra syllable and “B” is one extra letter. “B” is good, no “B” bad.
The Clearing-House together with the REC country office supported a one-day national round table
discussion 8 May 2006 that included the phase-out of leaded gasoline. The Clearing-House plans to carry out an
awareness campaign that will include blood lead level testing, in cooperation with REC and the Institute of
Public Health of Belgrade. A ban for phase-out is not clearly defined; according to the National Environmental
Action Program, an optimistic forecast is given as 2015, whereas a ‘business as usual’ deadline would be 2020.
As of 2006, 58% of fuel used was leaded, with no price difference between leaded and unleaded. Serbia is in the
process of privatizing its refineries, and there is currently no political interest in improving fuel quality in the
country. The PCFV Clearing-House, together with the US EPA and the REC, plans to participate in the
upcoming UNECE Environment for Europe ministerial conference, Belgrade October 2007 to bring more
attention to the issue.
Our nanny reports that Ocean is now walking to school with her instead of sitting in the stroller Ocean is advancing quite quickly, more so that her older brothers I think being the youngest helps, and surviving two very rough brothers.
Vera, shown with the red hair on the bench, is very good with Ocean. She treats Ocean like a granddaughter. Vera is extremely hard-working, helping us manage a busy household. Everyday she walks Ocean to school to see Nadia and to pick up Oliver and Owen. They are pictured in the school playground.
All during the school year I spend my Wednesday afternoons with the Administration Team of the International School of Belgrade. We get together to discuss school issues, events, initiatives, and programs. The bottom line is student learning, and all of us work together, with the feedback and cooperation of the staff to always be improving.
The meetings usually last a couple of hours and since we spend so much time together, we have all grown close. From left to right in the photo are Eric Sands, (Director), Branislav Nikolić (IT Coordinator), myself, Snežana Hasanović (Business Manager), and Tim Moynihan, (Elementary Principal). They are all dedicated professionals and very good people. I have learned much from each of them. Despite differing opinions sometimes, and the occasional stressful situation, we get along very well. I have really enjoyed the camaraderie and professional collaboration and interaction. It has made me a better educator.
We are shown above in Dr. Sand’s office working on the new school web site. The intense efficiency, teamwork, and production was somehow captured in this action photo. Thanks to Neša for the photograph.
This is another sign in our neighborhood. On a street that runs perpendicular to our street in our neighborhood of Senjak, I saw this street sign. Since the street signs in Belgrade are all in the Cyrillic script, this will take some translating to get the message.
Serbia used two types of alphabets. The one above is Cyrillic, which is the Eastern part of Serbian culture. They also use a corresponding Latin alphabet. The first line in the sign is “Ulica” which means “Street” in English. The name of the street is “Ljube Jovanovića” which is a Serbian name.
Some of the letters have been blocked out by spray paint. What is left are the letters, “OBANA” which is very close to “OBAMA.” I noticed this was done in October, just before the elections. US President Barack Obama is very popular here in Serbia as I blogged about in November. There is some Obama supporter here in Senjak. At least the sign will be good for at least four years.
Near our house in Senjak, someone with a sense of humor has changed some street signs. To the left is a photo of sign in front of a school up the block from us. It shows children at play and a speed limit of 40 kilometers per hour. The sign below shows a slight change to a sign on the other side of the street.
This might be appropriate for some US public schools, but certainly not here in Serbia, where violent crime is very rare. It is one of the safest cities in Europe.
You can see where some jokester with a black, permanent marker, drew a gun in the hand of the boy behind the girl.
Oliver’s Early Years teacher, Ms. Mira, sent along this photo of Oliver’s birthday party in his classroom. Oliver had a party last Thursday on the actual day of his birthday.
Nadia reports that it was super cute and the kids were very calm.
(Note – This is an update to my History of Serbia page. You can read my working draft on Bill’s History of Serbia page.)
In the early 1800’s, Serbia was on the edge of the Ottoman Empire, a long way from the capitol of the Ottomans, Istanbul. So far away in fact, that the Sultan Selim III in Istanbul did not have full control of the Belgrade province, or pashalik in Turkish. The province was run by four dahi who brutally repressed the Serbian peasants. The dahi’s soldiers, called janissaries, lived in the Belgrade fortress and periodically patrolled the sparsely populated land of Serbia.
The Serbian Uprising of 1804 began with the execution of Serbian peasant leaders in the town of Ljubenino Polje, about 30 miles south of Belgrade. The dahis had reports that Aleksandar Nenodovic was importing arms from the Hapsburg Empire from across the Danube River, just north of Belgrade. The dahis took a George Bush, proactive approach and wanted to crush a rebellion before it started. The janissaries beheaded many of the Serbian leaders. These be headings sparked, as Misha Glenny writes, “the beginning of modern history on the Balkan peninsula” as the Serbs began to get rid of the Ottoman Turks and their Eastern culture. This was the seća knezova or the massacre of the leaders. The word Knez you see today all over Serbia, and it is translated as “village headman”, “prince, or “duke”.
A French Artist Portraying a Janissary Patrol in Izmir, Turkey (1831)
The janissaries were a sign that the Ottoman Empire was in decline. They originally were an elite guard for the Sultan, but eventually turned into autonomous dictators, and in Serbia, they basically made the Serbs, serfs of the themselves as feudal overlords. This was in direct opposition to the some wealthy Serb pig merchants, who had a rich trade with the Austro-Hungarians in Vojvodina.
They eliminated around 100 knezes, but some escaped to become hajduks (guerilla insurgents) in the forests of Serbia. One in particular, became the leader and eventually would lead the Serbs not only to down the janissaries, but also to take on the entire Ottoman Empire.
Đorđe Petrović was a peasant from central Serbia. In Serb the Đ (đ) is pronounced like the English J, so his name is translated in English as George. He was called Karađorđe, which means Black George. George organized thousands of Serbs and they easily defeated the janissaries. They became so powerful, that they also defeated the Sultan’s army in 1805 in a battle close to the southern Serb city of Niš.
George's Black Hair Gave Him His Nickname
They were close to cutting a deal with the Sultan when greater events intervened. The Russians, French, and Turks were battling for supremacy of the region. Black George aligned with the fellow Christian Orthodox Russians. The Russian army came and occupied Belgrade, which was under siege by the Ottomans. Black George was in trouble when the Russian Tsar Alexander I, withdrew his troops from Belgrade to fight against Napoleon. The Ottomans quickly moved three of their armies to take control of Belgrade, and Black George fled to Austria on October 3rd, 1813.
In 1817, Black George secretly returned to Serbia. The Serb leadership assassinated him, not only because he was a threat to them, but he also during his exile, aligned himself with the Greek revolution. The Serbs wanted an independent Serbia, not one under the more populous Greeks.
In looking at the legacy of George Petrović, he may have been considered a failure. His movement ultimately did not give Serbia independence. He also died a violent death at age 47.
But looking at it from a different perspective, his accomplishments were great. He rose from being an illiterate cattle and pig farmer, to leading the largest Christian army inside the Islamic Ottoman Empire. One of his rivals succeeded a few years later in gaining Serbian autonomy, but learned from the mistakes of George. Black George’s descendants however, became a Serb monarchical dynasty. The House of Karađorđević, or House of Black George ruled Yugoslavia from 1903 – 1941. Today, Crown Prince Aleksandar, a descendant of Black George, is living in the Royal Palace, near my home in suburb of Dedinje. He doesn’t have any formal political power, but is a figurehead and there is some talk of Serbia returning to a constitutional monarchy.
The Crown Prince Alexander’s second wife, Katherine Batis, called me earlier this year to help her with a charity fashion show for breast cancer she was holding at the palace.
Above is the video of us singing happy birthday to Oliver and him blowing out the candles. You can scroll down to read the previous two posts about Oliver’s birthday.
Yesterday we held Oliver’s birthday party because the May Day holiday. We invited some friends of ours and their children to come and celebrate Ollie’s big day. The kids, shown above, had a wonderful time, running around, laughing, and screaming and mostly leaving the adults alone for us to enjoy ourselves too. Our pergola is the perfect place to host parties, where both children and adults can have a good time. The name pergola is a bit pretentious, but it is the proper term to describe our back gazebo/patio set up in our yard. We have the incredible vine that has been trained to grow over the lattice and it really is our summer house. We spend as much time out there as we do inside the house during good weather. That is a nice thing about Belgrade, is that the spring and fall is warm and long. We use the pergola from August – mid-November and then again from mid-March to June. We are on holiday and outside the country in July.
Janko loved the strawberries!
We were concerned in the morning because it was cool and cloudy. I spent most of the day cutting the lawn, trimming the vines on the pergola, sweeping, preparing the grill, and getting the drinks ready for the party. The sun came out later in the day and by the time the party began at 4:00 PM, the day was beautiful. It did cool down later in the evening and we all went in to watch the kids dance party. The main course was of course the Serbian specialty, a BBQ. I prepared “pljekavica” as well as chicken shish kebabs wrapped in bacon. Nadia made a cake for Oliver’s birthday and a dessert for the adults which was a delicious strawberry truffle the kids then enjoyed ice cream cones .
The kids played with sidwalk chalk
Oliver received two toy motorcycles, one from our nanny Vera. He also got a water gun and a nice book, “We’re Going On a Bear Hunt.” He laughed and had a fantastic time, being the complete wildman he is. Right before the party, true to form, Oliver fell when Owen was chasing him with water balloons. Oliver had a big bump right in the middle of his forehead. We used to call him unicorn boy because of this and it was appropriate that he did this on his special day. He is such a little character and talks to everyone.
It was nice to have a Serbian touch to the day and Owen’s teacher Verica sang Srećan Rođendan (Happy Birthday). We were laughing at the kids trilingualism, Spanish-Serbian-English. Nadia and I were exhausted at the end of the evening. The party didn’t end until around 9:00 PM.
It was a good day had by all! Happy Birthday Ollie – We Love You!!!! To see more photos of the evening, please check out my flickr.com account.
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