Category: Serbia

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

Visit to the Roma Settlement in Rakovica

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Roma Children, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

Monday a delegation from our school visited the Roma Settlement in Rakovica, a suburb of Belgrade. The purpose of the visit was to deliver clothes and to entertain the children of the settlement. The High School Choir sang and we brought a truck load of clothes that were donated by the school community.

This settlement is one of several places that the Roma people that lived under the Gazelle Bridge were moved to. Earlier this fall, the large, Gazelle Bridge, makeshift village was plowed under by city officials. With the help of the United Nations and other organizations, new settlements were found for the approximately 20,000 people living there.

I spoke with a government social worker who helps the families in the settlment we visited. She said that the municipality of Rakovica donated the land. Rakovica is a suburb of Belgrade located on the south side of Kostunjak Park. It is a heavy industrial area and we noticed many factories near the site. There was also what appeared an older Roma settlement on the hill above the site. Trailers donated for 37 families. Each trailer has electricity, plumbing, and running water. All utilities are free.  The Bread of Life, a non-governmental organization provides one hot meal a day for the community. The site is near one of the regular city bus routes into the city where children go to school and adults can go to work. 

The trailers are well kept by the families.

 

The Roma people have been an endless source of fascination for me and the family. Most are very poor and we see them often picking through the garbage for cardboard, plastic, etc. I spoke with several Roma community members and they are quite happy with trailers and the new living conditions. Much improved from the slum they were living at, although they are a bit further out of the city. One of the community leaders was concerned about the values of the children and wanted the school to help with giving the message to the Roma children the importance of education. From what I have read about Roma, and from talking with the social worker, part of this is cultural. Roma have a difficult time adapting to Western cultural values of employment, delayed gratification, and long-term thinking. They were all very friendly and welcoming to us. 

Photo from October 2008 of the Gazelle Bridge Roma Slum

 

It was great for our students to see the other side of life. We have an affluent community, and it is important to develop in our students, a community conciousness. I am a firm believer in a judgement of a society is how it treats its lowest members. The Roma need to be taken care of and supported so future generations can integrate into modern society and contribute to the good of Belgrade and Serbia. The generosity of our community was outstanding. A huge amount of clothes were donated. So much so, that some will be delivered to various places needing it. We also work with an orphanage near the school and we’ll be visiting them next week. The choir sang in a large trailer that serves as a community center (photo above).  The Roma children enjoyed the music and it brightened up the day for the mothers and children. I noticed a lot of people hanging around on a Monday, especially men, and that may indicate that many are not working or have steady jobs. 

I hope that our school and me personally can do more for the Roma and the poor and needy of Belgrade.

Serbia World Cup Draw

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Last Friday the World Cup Soccer draw took place. There was a lot of hype and attention on the event, as everyone was hoping for an easy draw. I was most interested in Serbia’s group and this post is an analysis of their chances of winning the World Cup. 
I think people put too much emphasis on which group their team gets placed into. I look at it like it doesn’t matter when you face the tough opponents, whether in your group or in following rounds, eventually you are going to have to beat a quality opponent. For each group of 4, the top two qualify. Then the 16 teams in the 8 groups advance to the single elimination bracket. Qualifying from an easy group, a team will likely play a tough opponent in the knockout round of 16.
Serbia’s group is one of the tougher groups of the eight. Of course, the favorite is Germany. The Germans have been in the championship game 7 times in their history and have won three World Cups. The team cruised through its qualifying group, easily defeating Russia and Finland. The team once again is solid, with Chelsea star Michael Ballack leading the way. Germany’s discipline, physical play, and talent will be hard to beat.
Serbia is ranked second in the group on paper, but I would say that all three teams are just about even.  Ghana is a country of 23 million and are a traditional African power, winner several African Cups over the years. “The Black Stars” recently won the Under-20 World Cup and last World Cup, made it out of the first round, losing to Brazil 0-3 in the round of 16. The team features another Chelsea superstar, midfielder, Michael Essien, and also, former Vojvodina FK coach, and Serb, Milovan Rajevac is the coach. 
Australia qualified through Asia for the first time. Usually they compete in the Oceania group, but wanted tougher competition to prepare for the Cup. They beat Japan to get in, and their star is Tim Cahill, from Everton. 
Serbia has a good of chance as anyone. They won a tough qualifying group, finishing higher than France, Austria, and Romania. They have top league European based players, with the star being Nemanja Vidic for Manchester United. They looked out classed against France however, and I fear that both Germany and Ghana, may have a faster game than the Serbs. I do feel good with Vidic in the back, and the Serbs do play tough soccer. 
If they do get through, they will have to play either #1 or #2 of group C which features England, USA, Algeria, and Slovenia. Suppose they finish second, they could play England. The winner then plays either group 1 winner France or group 2 runner-up Argentina. That would put them in the semifinals. As you can see, it will be very tough odds for Serbia to win it all. 
There has only been a small number of teams that have won the World Cup in recent years. Realistically, the winner will be Brazil (192 million), Germany (82 million), Italy (60 million) England (50 million) France (62 million). The Netherlands, with 16.5 million, is the smallest country to consistently appear in the semifinals. Note that Croatia did make it to the 1998 semifinals which is an anomaly. My idea would be to have a large nation and a small nation World Cup. Set it at say 20 million, and nations with a population smaller than that would compete in one tourney and larger nations in the other. You could even have the winners meet. I know other factors come into play other than population, like coaching, financial support, youth programs, etc, but long-term, the chances of a very small nation winning it are remote. There are many smaller nations with excellent soccer, like Denmark, Paraguay, Portugal, etc. that would make for an interesting World Cup, small division. There is a nice article in the Wall Street Journal that has similar thoughts to my ideas. 
I would also modify the game of soccer to allow more goals. Because the extreme difficulty of scoring goals, too many games come down to a lucky bounce or an acting dive in the penalty box. I don’t like to watch a game where one team dominates play the entire game and then loses with one counter attack that results in a goal. The modifications I propose would be larger goals, more lenient offsides rule, stricter penalties for players faking a trip (automatic red card and forced to wear a pink tutu for the rest of the season or tourney), etc. I would rather see games finish 8-7 than 0-0 and a team wins with penalty kicks. 
Anyway, I’ll enjoy watching the games in June and there will be a lot of excitement here in Serbia. Living an expat global nomad lifestyle, I have several alligences to other teams including Australia and the USA. My South American teams did not qualify this time (Colombia, Bolivia, and Venezuela). 

 

Hiking On Mount Avala

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This past weekend I was alone with the kids as my wife went to Budapest with girl friends. On Sunday I took the kids out to Mount Avala for a morning of adventure. It is only 18 kilometers outside of Belgrade and a nice day trip.

This is our second time there, and we found some areas away from the monuments that were great for kids. It was a foggy day (the fog seems to stay around Belgrade for days) and with the woods had a special feel to them. We played hide and seek in the trees near the monument as well as hiked some of the trails going down the mountain. A highlight was going through a tunnel that ran under the road near the Roman mine shaft. The mountain is a former island in the Pannonian Sea, and was always a focal point for people heading to Belgrade. The name “avala” means obstacle or shelter in Turkish. Both the Ottomans and Romans settled the area. 

There are plenty of trees, herbs, and wildflowers to identify and the kids loved it, so we will definitely be back. They are reconstructing the TV tower that NATO took out ten years ago. It will have a restaurant and tourists will be able to go up to enjoy the view.

Serbian Parliament

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Serbian Parliament Building, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

I took this photo on last Friday’s field trip to the ivo Andric museum. Both the Parliament building and Andric’s former apartment on on Pioneer’s Park. It was a beautiful sunny morning. This week has been grey and rainy. Temperatures are in the 40’s and 30’s (F) and the sun is supposed to be back on Friday. It looks like temperatures will dip below freezing next week and I am hoping for snow. 

Serbia’s parliament has one house called the National Assembly consisting of 250 members. That is one representative for every 26,000 Serbian citizens. I don’t know how that compares to other countries, but it seems to be a bit of overkill. The school is planning on having some of our older students serve internships in the parliament next semester through an international NGO. I am looking forward to that. The public can visit the parliament on the last Saturday of each month. I would like to do that with the boys. 

A Tomb for Boris Davidović by Danilo Kiš

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These are a collection of short stories set in the first half of this century. The settings include the Spanish Civil War and the Russian revolution. 

One thought provoking idea is how history has been changed by people that have died that we don’t know anything about. Danilo follows these people and tells their story. I don’t want to ruin the book, but in all the stories, the main characters mostly end up dying. Methods of death are as follows:

  • Died of vitamin deficiency in Soviet Work Camp in 1941
  • Murdered during escape attempt from Russian prison after being captured in Spanish Civil War. 
  • Survived 10 years of prison camp; no unnatural death
  • Murdered with crowbar by fellow prisoner after both got out of prison camp
  • Dived into foundary fire rather than go back to prison camp

Initially I thought about how large the prison system role played in the Soviet Union. But in thinking it over, I would guess that today in the USA, the prison system plays a larger role in our society with our stupid ‘war on drugs.’ We probably have more people behind bars percentage-wise than the old Gulag system did. 

Danilo Kiš

 There are also a few great lines – he is a fantastic writer, even in translation.

Ireland “…for so long marked the boundary of the known world to navigators.” 

…”the temporary suffering of existence is worth more than the final void of nothingness.”

“Nature gave her everything: intelligence, talent, and beauty.”

…”man is only a speck of dust in the ocean of timelessness…”

Kis has many references to events and people that I didn’t know about. He also uses uncommon vocabulary. Below are words I learned:

pellagra  – A vitamin deficiency disease caused by eating corn-based diet without proteins. It was common in the US south in the 1920’s and 30’s as well as Soviet prison camps. 

Ploesti – oil fields in Romania, US bombed them in WWII after Romania joined Germany 

Cochin Hen – breed of chicken from China, large bird

Talmud – rabbinic discussions of Jewish law, ethics, etc. 

Bukovina – region split between Ukraine and Romania

ad acta – A Latin phrase meaning on the archives (filed away as is an unsolved murder)

farrow –  a litter of domestic pigs

brio – the quality of being active, spirited, alive, or vigorous – Kralovec children have lots of this!

Brest-Litvosk Peace Treaty – Signed in Belarus, marks Russia’s exit of WWI

Bolshevik – means “majority” in Russian, eventually became the communist party that founded the Soviet Union

Russian Ballet Performs in Belgrade

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Sunday evening we went out to watch the Russian Ballet perform at the Sava Center here in Belgrade. The Sava Center is a great place, it looks like a Sci Fi movie set from the 1970’s, ie Logan’s Run. The architectural style is a lot of cement, glass, and dark panelling inside. 

 

Scene from the 1976 Sci Fi Film Logan's Run

It was built in 1977 as a convention center and concert hall in New Belgrade. It hosted an IMF congress when it opened. Wikipedia some nice photos of the place and a bit on the history. 

We went out with friends for dinner first and had a great time. It was the first time I have seen ballet live. The dance form originated in the royal courts of France (hence the name) in the 1500 and 1600’s. It is kind of a stylized form of fencing. It is appropriate that I saw the Russian ballet performance, as that is the country that popularized it around WWI after it was declining for a long time. 

I enjoyed the evening. A lot was lost with the format of the performances. It was a “best of” with short pieces from a variety of plays. I think with one full play with context, I could be engaged a bit more with the form. I like dancing and we hold periodic dance contests in the house with the kids. When I showed videos of the performance to Owen and Oliver, they thought it was a bit boring and they preferred the “free style” dance form of Michael Jackson videos. I will attend the ballet again, but will wait for a full performance of a piece. 

The dancers were quite flexible which I admired. The outfits were a bit too much (see above) for my taste. 

 

 

Ivo Andric Museum

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Note- Any of my Serbian readers can translate what is on the page above?

Yesterday I went to the Ivo Andric Museum located near the Parliment building in downtown Belgrade. He was a true Yugoslav, being born and raised in Bosnia and having homes in Croatia and Serbia. He ended spending the majority of his life in his later years in Belgrade. The Ivo Andric Foundation made a museum out of his apartment. It was a modest apartment, and typical from a man that material things did not mean much. He was a man of principles. 

 

Andric's 1961 Nobel Prize

It was interesting to see his small cerca 1976 apartment. The photo above is from his desk. It was also the first time I saw a Nobel Prize medal. He won the 1961 Nobel Prize for literature for his book, Bridge Over the River Drina. I was a chaperone with the grade 11 students from the ISB High School. We stopped at the Hotel Moscow for a cup of coffee before visiting the museum. Andric used to spend a lot of time there and the cafe there was THE place to be in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. All the celebrities, intellectuals, and visiting dignataries made a stop there. The morning gave me a glimpse of how it was back in the time of Tito and Yugoslavia. Sad that they couldn’t keep the federation together – I think everyone would be much better off if they did. 

I asked the tour guide if Andric had any living relatives and she said no close ones. There is a group of people that manage the foundation. I wonder what Andric would have thought about Višegrad today. It is the scene of his book and it is much different after the Yugoslav Civil Wars. He probably understood Bosnia better than anyone. 

The View of Andric's Apartment Building From Pioneer Park

Naive Art of Kovačica, Serbia

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One of the more interesting pieces

 

 

Sunday we took a drive over to Kovačica, a small town located about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north east of Belgrade. The town is famous for its naive art style painters and its majority Slovak population. Nadia loves art and we’re exposing the kids to art so we decided to go and check out the galleries. Naive art is a genre that emphasizes color,  childlike simplicity, and patterns. I never heard of this art style before and was curious to learn more.

The gallery/museum is well maintain and features the works of around 25 artists from the town and neighboring villages. The styles vary, from the more realistic depictions to pure fantasy. The use of color differs also, some being extremely bright and others more subdued. Most of the subject matter is a romanticized, rural lifestyle. For example, many show scenes of the harvest or hunt, sledding in the winter, etc. I preferred the more realistic works of Jan Bačur and Mihal Povolny while Nadia liked the more colorful pieces, especially of Ana Knjazovic. The town of Jagodina in southern Serbia is more famous for its naive painting and maybe someday we’ll visit there. 

It was a bitterly cold morning and we walked around the main plaza a bit. It was strange to see a priest walking near our car when we pulled into town. The town is mostly descendants of Slovak immigrants and they have their own church. We usually see the Orthodox holy men with the long beards and black robes. We bought a small piece for our house and some souvenir calendars. It is a nice day trip and better than hanging around the house on a cold, foggy day. 

 

The Kralovec Family is not the best for cold weather!

 

 

Patriarch Pavle Dies

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Update November 27, 2009 – This post generated a lot of comments which surprised me. Some people called me on my understanding of the Serbian Orthodox Church. I don’t have a fact-checker or the time often to verify everything I write. The comments did inspire me to do a bit of reading and I learned that the Orthodox church prides itself on being the most “original” of all of the Christian sects. Although the Serbian Orthodox Church is not the “official” church of the state, it is so closely tied with politics and the Serbian ethnic identity, that is the de facto official church. All of the political parties are lobbying for their candidate to be named the next Patriarch. 

Few of my Belgrade friends attended the funeral and procession. A couple went to pay their respects at the wake. It seemed to me that most people attending the funeral were from smaller towns and outside of Belgrade where religious sentiment is stronger. I think it was good to see that many people gather for a decent man. I love the pagentry and tradition and am following the naming of a successor. I am an atheist so this whole event does not have any religious or deeper meaning for me. 

In regards to Pavle’s legacy. It would have been tough to stop the war. I can’t think of any religious leader, besides maybe Ghandi that did stop a war. I think the media is a bit harsh in that respect in judging him. It is my hope that his successor give a message of tolerance and honesty for the people of the Balkans. It would be good for the church to work to heal Bosnia and relations between Serbia and Croatia instead of whether the country moves towards the EU or Russia. 

The big news this week in Serbia is the death of the Patriarch Pavle. Pavle (Paul) in English is the name taken by Gojko Stojčević and he was the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Like the Pope to the Catholic, the Patriarch is the supreme leader of the faith. He was 95 years old and his death comes after a long illness – the last two years he was in the hospital. 

Pavle died on Sunday and the country declared three days of mourning. People are lined up to pay their respects to the open casket in the cathedral in downtown Belgrade. The funeral will be at St. Sava’s Church on Thursday and the burial will be at the Rakovica Monastery located in the southern suburbs of Belgrade. The BBC reported on his legacy.

Serb interests

Pavle was a respected theologian and linguist, known for personal humility and modesty.

After the fall of communism and rise of Serb nationalism, the Church regained a leading role during his rule.

At the beginning of the Balkan wars that followed the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, Pavle said – according to Serbian state television: “It is our oath not to make a single child cry or sadden a single old woman because they are of another religion or nation.”

But critics accused him of failing to contain hardline bishops and priests who supported Serb paramilitaries against Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims.

After those wars, Pavle became more directly involved – openly criticising Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, after he lost Kosovo following Nato’s intervention.

Since then, the Serbian Orthodox Church has strongly supported the Serbian government in its efforts to stop Kosovo’s independence drive.

“Kosovo is not only a question of territory, it is a question of our spiritual being,” he said after Kosovo’s declaration of independence.

The Serbian Orthodox Church is the official state church. For a long time, it was suppressed by the Turks, Austro-Hungarians, and most recently, the communists. Pavle was the 44th Patriarch and the church officials will announce when a successor will be named. At least 40 days must pass before one can be chosen. Most Serbs I know are not that religious, although because the church is so strongly tied to the state, I feel people support the church out of patriotism. This is so different from my home country of the USA, where there is a clear boundary between the church and state, and no one church is officially sanctioned. The Orthodox Church is the Byzantine side of Roman Catholicism and when they split from the Pope, the orthodox churches in the various countries split into their own administrative units instead of maintaining a single head like the Catholics. 

I hope to get a chance tomorrow to go downtown and see the faithful and take some photos. I am working Thursday, so doubt I’ll get a chance to go to the funeral. I am not a believer or member of the Orthodox Church, but I respect the historic significance of the position and his passing. It will be interesting to see who will replace him.

I also think the Serbian Orthodox priests look holy with their long beards, black robes, and hats. 

The Patriarch Pavle Visits Monasteries in Kosovo in 2005

Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina

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Sarajevo Views – October 18, 2009, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

I took this photo from a hilltop above Olympic Stadium in the northern suburbs of Sarajevo. The large gray area above the apartment buildings and below the snow is a cemetary of war dead. The siege of Sarajevo lasted over 4 years and over 11,000 people died. What a horrible waste! The cemetary pictured is only one of many.

 The grave to the left is of a seven year old Bosniak. Most of the tombstones had deaths from the time of the siege. One of the horrible characteristics of the war in Bosnia was the heavy involvement of civilians. The fighting in Sarajevo was especially disturbing. There were few traditional front lines or strategic geographic points like a river or mountain top, but mostly building to building and apartment to apartment exchange of fire. I can’t believe so many non-combatants were trapped in the city. It sounded like from what I have read and from what people tell me is most ordinary citizens didn’t think there was going to be such a level of violence.  The photos, videos, and accounts of the war are shocking. It was interesting to look for and experience the effects of war 15 years after it occured. I have visited battle sites before, like the Battle of Carabobo site in Venezuela. They were hundreds of years after the fact and seemed like ancient history. This was fresh.  I wonder if this is what my father felt as he served in the US army of occupation in Germany in the early 1950’s. The devastating effects of WWII must have been all around him, not only in the buildings, but in the people also. Most of the people we talked to in the city were very nice and I didn’t ask much about the war. I thought that it would be too personal, especially questions coming from a tourist.

One of the most fascinating sites was the tunnel museum. This was the “tunnel of hope” that ran underneath the airport into the city. The tunnel was used to get people and supplies in and out of the city. The museum is located out by the airport and a short section of the original tunnel remains. The original house that sat above the entrance is now full of war displays. We watched a video about the war and the role of the tunnel. Owen was most excited about the fact that actor Daniel Craig (James Bond) also visited the tunnel and his picture was on the wall

 

 I loved the city of Sarajevo. The mosques gave it an exotic touch, the mountains and ski areas around the city are beautiful, and the markets and friendly people make it a very cool place to visit. The older part of the city was crowded and parking was difficult. It will take a long time for the city to shake the effects of the war. The pre-war ethnic mix is now gone, with most Serbs leaving. The city is still great, but with the emotional and physical scars of war in the buildings and people, it is less of a city. 

The Dayton Accords ended the war and it divided the country by the frontlines between the Bosnian Serbs and the Croats/Bosniaks. It is still one country, but divided into “cantons” which in my mind are basically countries. I was interested in how the Republika Srpska (RS) would be.  RS is mountainous and beautiful. I saw one Bosnian flag while seeing in every village, huge Serbian flags without the coat of arms. The Bosnian flag was flying in a park made with EU money. In a few of the towns were new mosques, obviously built with money from the Middle East. The trip made me think about the Serbs of Bosnia. I got the impression that they were the “country cousins” of the Serbs. I suppose it would be like the differences between the New Yorkers or the people of Boston and Texans.

What both Bosnia and the Republika Srpska need are more money. With a better economy, people would have other worries besides ethnic or religous differences. As my friend in Belgrade said, “give them mortgages and bosses, and they will forget to shoot at each other.” He also said that before the war, there were more similarities between Bosnian Serbs and Bosniaks that between people the Bosnians and people in Belgrade. The war and afterwards made people express their differences more. As Barak Obama said, it is harder to find our similarities than our differences.

I hope to return to Bosnia again. I would like to go skiing there, see the Catholic shrine of Madjure (spelling) and the coastal area and highlands of Hercegovina. 

The infamous Holiday Inn of Sarajevo

The Beautiful Countryside of the Republika Srpska