Book Review: “Constantine’s Crossing” by Dejan Stojiljković

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The Serbian publishing company Geo Poetika with help from the Serbian government, has translated a series of novels of Serbia authors to English. This is the second one I have read, the first being Lake Como.

This book has a lot going for it, as it is right up my alley. It is a historical fiction novel, set in World War II, in the southern Serbian city of Niš. It has evil Nazis, Chetniks, Partizans, mixed in with a search for the Emperor Constantine-s weapon collection in the tunnels underneath the city. It also has vampires. With all of these elements that I love, I really enjoyed the book. It was a fast read and I could’t put it down.

I wish Stojiljković would have taken the story deeper, however. It is a great concept, but at 265 pages, it is hard to develop the characters fully and get into all of the cool history surrounding the early Christians, Germanic Tribes, and the life of Constantine. I don’t think the author is a scholar and perhaps this book would have been more to my liking if it was written by Umberto Eco or even Dan Brown. I could have used some more background on things like the runic alphabets, the Nazi’s work in the occult, and the life of Constantine. I could have used another 300-400 pages!

It was a great concept however and a perfect book for the airplane. Thanks again to Geo poetika for featuring these Serbian writers for the outside world to read. I highly recommend this book and it makes me want to explore some of the ruins around Niš. Also, the myth of the vampire started in Serbia and I just read of the course at the University of Wisconsin, by a Serbian professor, that explores this connection.

 

Great Day in Košutnjak

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Finish, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

I ran yesterday in the Košutnjak Challenge Race here in Belgrade. Košutnjak is a large park near our apartment that used to be the hunting grounds of the Serbian Royal family before World War I. Today it is still mostly forest with lots of public recreation areas.

The race was 5 kilometers with an obstacle at every kilometer. The obstacles included a narrow, deep ravine, hay stacks, ropes, even an old carnival ride we needed to climb over. I finished in 29 minutes. I didn’t feel great yesterday, but it was fun, barelling through the forest. There were about 100 runners and we had a good day with my friend Michael and my family. I would like to thank the running club of Serbia, trcanje.rs for organizing the run and for having a calendar of runs in the area.

Owen runs down the hill at the Cafe

Later in the day we went back to Košutnjak to meet up with friends at Alexander’s Cafe and Ski Hill. It was the first time I went there, and the views of the city are spectacular. I highly recommend the place for drinks and we’ll definitely go back this winter for some skiing with the kids.

A Bit of Heaven

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I loved it earlier this week the opportunity to ride my bike to school with my two sons. Oliver turned seven recently and now he can ride his bike with Owen and I to school. He was a bit nervous the first time and walked his bike down the hill and when crossing busy streets. The second day he made it the entire way without stopping.

It is a great way to start my day! When will the girls join us?

Happy Birthday Oliver

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We hosted a birthday party for my son Oliver who turned 7 on April 30th. His birthday fell during our Spring Break Holiday, so we waited until after we got back so all of his friends could come. The weather was dreadful on Sunday, and so it was perfect that we rented a playground in the big shopping mall in Belgrade, Usce. They have a massive playground and big area of eating.

About 30 of his friends attended and Oliver has been loving playing with all of his toys. He got a lot of legos, cars, and books about pirates. Mom made batman cupcakes and we ordered a batman cake. Oliver loves super heroes and comic books. It was cool to see his name in the Serbian Cyrillic script. Oliver looks like ОЛИВЕР in Cyrillic and they added an “e” at the end because of the noun case. Happy Birthday (Srećan Rođendan) Olivere.

A great time was had by all including parents. Happy Birthday Oliver, you are growing up too fast!

Elections Today

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Update: From the B92 web site, the live results page from 1:00 AM. There will be another election between Tadic and Nikolic, both who got around 25% of the vote. I’ll be curious to see what percentage of eligible citizens voted. There were no surprises. In the parliament elections, Nikolic’s party has a slight advantage with 73 seats to Tadic’s 68. There will be a long negotiation to form coalitions to get a majority. I can’t remember what the “magic number” of seats is to form a government.

Predsednički izbori – Tadić i Nikolić u drugom krugu (82,9% pregledanih, 61,14% izlaznost): Stanković: 6.6%, Glišić: 2.7%, Tadić: 25.4%, Koštunica: 7.2%, Dragišić: 1.7%, J. Šešelj: 3.9%, Zukorlić: 1.3%, Grujičić: 0.7%, Dačić: 14.2%, Jovanović: 5.2%, Pastor: 1.7%, Nikolić: 25.2%,

Parlamentarni izbori – SNS ispred DS (78,8% obrađenih, 61,08% izlaznost): SNS: 73 (24.1%), DS: 68 (22.4%), SPS: 44 (14.4%), DSS: 21 (6.9%), LDP: 20 (6.6%), URS: 16 (5.3%), SVM: 5 (1.9%), SDA: 1 (0.6%), Sve zajedno: 1 (0.5%), NOPO: 1 (0.6%)

by B92 12:43 AM

Below is a nice article from The Economist about today’s elections. I am predicting that there will be no clear winner and the top two, Tadic and Nikolic will be running against each other. With my Serbian friends, as the article says, they are not happy with how things are going here, but they don’t think Nikolic is the answer. It should be interesting, especially if there is heavy voter turnout.

Serbia’s elections Cliffhangers The outcomes of Serbia’s many elections on May 6th are unpredictable

ON MAY 6th the French vote for a president and the Greeks and Armenians for parliaments. For Serbs it is the big bang: they will vote for a president, a parliament, in local elections and, in the province of Vojvodina, for a regional assembly. In Kosovo too, many Serbs may vote, but this is contentious and could lead to violence.

Kosovo aside, the Serbian elections are a cliffhanger. Polls give President Boris Tadic of the Democratic Party (DS) just under 36% and Tomislav Nikolic, leader of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), just over 36%. A run-off between the two a fortnight later is likely, and the result will be influenced by the parliamentary election. Mr Tadic sells himself as pro-European and pro-reform. But he looks tired and the economy is in dire straits. One poll finds 80% of Serbs are dissatisfied and angry, 77% feel helpless and hopeless and 60% are just depressed. The latest score for the SNS and its allies is 33.5%, with the DS and its allies trailing on 28.3%. Yet it may be easier for the DS than for the SNS to find other coalition partners.

The kingmaker is likely to be Ivica Dacic, leader of the Socialist Party, which with its allies is polling at 11.8%. Mr Dacic is the artful dodger of Serbian politics. In the war years he was a spokesman for Slobodan Milosevic. When Mr Milosevic fell in 2000 and was put on trial for war crimes, Mr Dacic stepped in to save the party. Now he is interior minister and a master of populist bluster. When Serbs were arrested in Kosovo, some with election materials, he arrested some Kosovo Albanians, boasting that this was a reciprocal measure. Mr Dacic is likely to stick with the DS, but he could choose to switch horses to the SNS if they make him a better offer (such as the premiership). The SNS was started in 2008 when Mr Nikolic and Aleksandar Vucic led their followers out of the extreme nationalist Radical Party, whose leader is also on trial for war crimes.

Any new government will have a hard time.Unemployment is 24% and as much as 40% of output is in the black economy. In February, because many workers went unpaid, more Serbs got pensions than salaries. Yet foreign companies are still investing in Serbia, not least Fiat, an Italian car maker that just opened a €1 billion ($1.3 billion) factory. With little time left, it is still uncertain what will happen in Kosovo. The Serbian authorities have stepped back from trying to organise local elections for Serbs there, though two municipalities in the Serb-controlled north may still hold them. If Serbia chooses to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in the north there is little the Kosovo government can do. But if it tries to hold them in the south, where most of Kosovo’s Serbs live, there could be bloodshed. One solution may be for both sides to accept a figleaf of cover for elections from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. But NATO is taking no chances, deploying 700 more peacekeepers to deter violence. Until Serbia has a new government the European Union-sponsored dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia will remain in abeyance. Edita Tahiri, Kosovo’s chief negotiator, says she is not worried if there is a change in government in Belgrade. The talks will resume and Serbia will have to carry on making compromises, just as Kosovo does, because they have “no choice but to continue being pro-European.”

Family Journal: May 4, 2012

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Ocean, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

We’ve been focusing on our health this week and visiting Bel Medic. The photo above is classic. My daughter Ocean is getting a blood test and she wanted to do it by herself, like her older brothers. Her arm started to bleed a little, but she made it through. I love the expression of when needle enters her arm.

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.

Oliver Turns 7

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Oliver, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

The above video shows Oliver playing in a park near our house. His birthday is coming up this week and he is really maturing into a cute little guy.

Nadia and I are getting a big laugh out of Ollie’s books he writes at school. He brings one home every few days and you can tell by the titles, what he is interested in.
“Military Alien Attack”
“Sea Wars”
“Milateree (sic) Break In”
“The Stealth Jets World War Death and Life”
“Zombie Attack – 18 Living Death- Season 2”
“Zombie Attack – 18”
“Materials Monster Attack”
“Misile Shooter 1”
“Sea Monsters in the Ocean and Rivers and Ponds and Trees and Forest and Poison and in Ground”

The books are well illustrated in a comic book form. Here is the transcript of one of his short stories, “Sea Wars.”

One day Jack and Oliver, Oskar, Marco were on their own boat. Sudely somthing grabbed the boat and went under water. Where did they go?
The boys search everywhere for the boat and they found it. Shark people were garding the boat. The boat transfored into a subereen
The boys froze a shark that was mashing the top. The sharks got in their machines and went after them. The boys got out of the water with a jet. The sharks got in their base and went after the boys.

Lukily the boys got safe to the base. Affter that,, the boys had a feast. They ate roasted chicken. ” – THE END

Brilliant!!!! I think he will be the next best selling action author.

Latest Reading: “The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future”

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I just completed reading Viktor Cha’s book on North Korea. He is an expert on the country and used to work on the National Security Council and is now a professor at Georgetown University. I hear much about the country in the news and wanted to learn a bit more about it. It was an excellent read and below are the salient points I am taking away from the book.

My first knowledge of Korea came from watching re-runs of the 1970s television sitcom, M*A*S*H, which was set in the Korean War. The war thankfully ended before my father was drafted into the US Army (1956), but not after over 33,00 Americans were killed.

North Korea was formed in the aftermath of World War II. The Japanese had occupied the country for a long time and after their defeat, the USSR controlled the northern part of the country and the US the southern part. The Soviets installed Kim Il-Sung as a puppet leader. Il-Sung had fought the Japanese on the side of the Russians in a foreign delegation in China. He was really young and not a politician and someone the Russians thought they could control. He soon led North Korea into a war with the south and over 50 years later, his family dynasty is still leading the country. North Korea at the end of World War II was much better off than the south. They had the Japanese infrastructure and throughout the Cold War, like Yugoslavia, played China and the USSR off each other, gaining the maximum support from both. This all fell apart with the break up of the Soviet Union.

Today South Korea is 35 times richer than North Korea. North Korea is basically a province of China, with the Chinese supporting them because of mining interests and their port. It is hard to understand how the Kim family can keep such an iron grip on the population. Part of it must be Korean culture which is submissive to authority. The Kim’s also control the population tightly through blocking information from the outside, put dissent down violently, and keep most people in utter poverty. I watched a documentary years ago about a North Korean family secretly living in China in the woods, having to give up their 5 year old son to live with relatives because they couldn’t feed him. Absolutely heart-wrenching! I was disgusted and saddened to read about the atrocities. I can’t believe there are countries like this in 2012!

Cha predicts the regime will go down soon, and I hope so. Like him, I see eventually the countries becoming unified. It makes sense that they all live on a peninsula and it is a homogeneous ethnic population. It will be difficult however because of the vast difference in wealth, knowledge and culture of the two countries, being kept apart for so long. It was also interesting to read about the nuclear weapons North Korea owns and the long history of negotiations. The US is planning for the regime’s downfall. It will be a serious change for China, which shares a border and nearby Japan, as well.

I will be following the news from the country more closely. I hope to see the day that the North Korean people are freed from tyranny. I highly recommend the book to people who want to learn more about this secretive nation.