Ocean, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.
The third Kralovec child is now getting school photos done. She has really changed the past few months going from a baby to a little girl right before our eyes. Below is Ocean’s class.She goes three times a week to the International Nursery School of Belgrade which is just down the road from our school.
Ocean is pointing out the perfect Kralovec family Christmas tree at the Zuče Tree Farm. We traveled out to the plantation located near Avala Mountain, about 10 miles outside of Belgrade. The weather is unseasonably warm, with temperatures in the teens (50-60 F) and it felt more like spring than winter.
There were many trees to choose from and we picked a North American Blue Spruce. We took the option of having the tree dug up and potted so we can re-plant it after Christmas. It is a nice way of doing things and our Christmas Tree from a couple of years ago is growing in the garden of our old apartment. I hope to plant this tree somewhere in Dedinje.
After getting the tree, we drove once again to Timisoara, Romania for some Christmas shopping. We had fun with Brian, Anna, and their children, Miles and Posey.
It was sad to see the “plastic bag forest” below. As we were driving out of the Serbian border town of Vršac, near the city landfill, it this area of bags caught by bushes. Serbia has a long way to go with air, water, and land pollution, as do many Eastern Europe nations. I’m not sure why this plastic bag area is like this, and it puts a bad image to a rather lovely little town.
Belgrade Mufti Muhamed Jusufspahić, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.Last night I attended the Belgrade Philharmonic’s performance in the New Year Cycle. The cycle is a concert series based on the various religious New Year celebrations. Last night’s concert was the Islamic New Year. It is always interesting to watch the “VIPs” enter hall and last night was no exception. With a lot of cameras, etc, Belgrade Mufti Muhamed Jusufspahić came in to be seated. I snapped this photo of him speaking with the Philharmonic Director, who looks “artistic” with the spiked hair and fashionable glasses.
The Islamic community in Belgrade and in Serbia is quite small with only one mosque in Belgrade and about 300,000 Islamic people in the country. Most are found in the Sandzak, a region in Southern Serbia that borders Kosovo, Montenegro, and Bosnia.
Jusufspahic is a somewhat controversial figure in that he is the self-proclaimed leader of the Islamic community in Serbia. Several muftis in the Sandzak dispute this and there is political tension because of it.
I think it is nice for Serbia and the rest of the former Yugoslavia to have an Islamic community. It gives a bit of “exoticness” to the overwhelming majority Slavic Orthodox Serbian architecture and culture. The Islamic followers however, are Slavs, having been converted during the 500-year Ottoman occupation of Serbia. They don’t have different foods and look very Slavic. I enjoyed visiting Sarajevo and Mostar and hearing the call to prayer and seeing the towers of the mosques. I also visited the Bajrakli Mosque here in Belgrade in January of 2009.
We didn’t stay for the whole concert and Nadia and I went for a drink next door to the Hotel Square 9. A really nice atmosphere with not much smoking. We laughed quite a bit.
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