The train into Belgrade took forever. At least it felt that way - the heat wasn't helping since the trains in this region were the best 1968 had to offer and this one didn't have A/C. Belgrade is not the most impressive city in Europe. It's not a bad city. It's a little worn around the edges, especially where we bombed it...
About that. In 1999, mostly Muslim Kosovo decided they wanted to break away from Serbia. This probably shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone, since unrest in Kosovo was what started the Yugoslav War a few years before. Serbia, whose relationship with Kosovo can only be described as "It's complicated", started to move troops in there to,well... probably not to party. (Serbia doesn't have the best track record with things like human rights or relations with the Muslims - more on that later. ) SO... many of the Muslims living there started to flee into neighboring Albania. The UN told Serbia to knock it off. They didn't, so... NATO bombed them.
Since the US led the UN's bombing of Serbian forces a few years before that in order to helped the Bosnians, the US still isn't very popular in Serbia. They don't seem to hold it personally against anyone (me, for example) but I'm guessing there won't be a Bill Clinton Boulevard there anytime soon the way there is in Kosovo. In fact, in the military museum, and very proudly displayed, are pieces of the US stealth bomber they shot down. (Now, I'm no huge patriot, but I have to admit that did bug me a bit, seeing kids posing for photos of the display along with captured US army fatigues.)
The museum likes to point out that we dropped cluster bombs on the city, killing 15 civilians. I would like to point out that technically the USA doesn't subscribe to the convention that bans them, so...
Besides, it was technically NATO that conducted the strikes. The US didn't accidentally blow up that refugee column, or those hospitals, or that market, or the Chinese Embassy, or that passenger train. Blame NATO. It's all a part of what those in the business call "Collateral Damage". Sometimes, to make an omelette, you gotta break a few eggs. Or kill 500 civilians, plus or minus. Anyway, Kosovo got a country out of it, and it's beautiful. (Actually, it's really not. Pristina, the capitol, was one of the saddest capitol cities I've ever been to. One of the funniest postcards I ever sent was from there - it's basically a photo of a nondescript street showing dilapidated concrete buildings lined with old cars. I'm not sure if the photographer saw the irony, but I did.)
Anyway, back to Belgrade. The city has other things of note, including one remaining mosque and, of course, a fortress on a hill overlooking the city. (Another fortress - you can't swing a dead cat around here...) My favorite, though, was the Tesla museum. (Sorry, about this - I'm going to go on a slight nerd tangent here and unless you want to learn about Tesla (Yes, the cars are named after him.) you can skip on down to my party experience in Belgrade, marked with an **.)
Nikola Tesla was a Serb born in what is now Croatia. He was an inventor and contemporary of Thomas Edison - he even worked for Edison for a while. In fact, Edison apparently offered him $50,000 to fix a few designs, and when Tesla came to collect, Edison essentially said "Oh, sorry - I was joking. But thanks, anyway." Then, when Tesla didn't get his requested raise to $25/ week, he quit. (Can you really blame him? Edison was, by all accounts, kind of a prick.)
Bad luck seemed to follow the man - he developed radio a year before Marconi, but his equipment was destroyed in a fire. A year later Marconi then used some of Tesla's inventions to transmit the first radio transmission. But of all the things Tesla is noted for, including his eccentric personality, and the invention of radio control, the thing that he should be most famous for is something that you are using to read this blog. Something that I'm using to write it. Something that has allowed Edison's light bulb to be in almost every home on the planet. Two words: Alternating Current. (A/C for short.) Today, this is the method by which electricity is effectively and safely transmitted all over the globe. Previously, Edison had insisted that D/C was the way to go, perhaps, in no small part, because delivering D/C would have made Edison a considerable amount of money. Meanwhile, Tesla gave up his patents for A/C in order to benefit humanity.
Later, after many failed attempts to prove that energy could be transmitted without wires, and predicting the internet, Tesla died poor, and alone, in an apartment in New York.
No good deed(s) go unpunished, I suppose.
** Belgrade has a reputation as a party town, so my first night there I decided to hit up a few bars. The first one recommended by Lonely Planet was out of business. The second, too, was locked up. The third closed just as I got there. I asked around, and the theory I was told was that since all public transport had shut down at about 11:30, everyone had already gone home. Of course what this meant was that not only would I be going to bed completely sober, I also now had a three mile walk back to the hostel.
The next day I went to the largest Orthodox church in the world. After 100 years, it's still not finished being built, and judging by the inside, it might take another 100. (It was at this very point that, after having been away from home for over seven months, that I decided it was time to return to the States. My site-seeing was no longer fun and I realized I was simply filling time and going through the motions. On any given day back home this church might have been fascinating, but today my reaction was: This is it?)
Josip Broz Tito's grave was next, along with his famous baton collection. Every year on Tito's birthday, youth from around Yugoslavia participated in a relay bringing the leader a hand-made baton. Since he was President-For-Life, and lived a good long while, there are now thousands of these things, and many are on display next to his tomb.
That night I ate a dinner of Karadjordje's steak (Which looks like a giant deep-fried slug, or worse, but tastes alright -it's filled with gooey cheese!) and talked to a young man and his friends about how they felt concerning Serbia's history. It was a shot-gun conversation, with one friend dropping in conflicting information and opinions, so I got a rather confusing review of the history I sort-of knew: 700,000 Serbs killed in concentration camps by the Nazis and Croats, Tito's rise to power, etc. But there were a couple things said that stood out about the Yugoslav war: "It was like, "We're neighbors, friends, relatives, but now... I'm going to kill you." because it didn't fit in with their idea of how their country should be." They pointed out that Bosnia being declared a "Muslim" country was also a dividing point. "Muslim isn't a country, it's a religion." I then asked about Kosovo...
Friend 1: "In 1998, when Kosovo broke away, we did not, I swear, try to ethnically cleanse the Albanians."
Friend 2: "But we did a pretty good job in Bosnia, so...."
Friend 1: "Look, yes, we committed war atrocities..."
Friend 2: "You keep saying that."
Friend 1: "But everyone did! Somehow, we are the only ones that keep getting blamed and that people remember."
Me: "So, what about the future?"
Friend 1: "I think it has settled down, but it's going to take time. I'm only in my early 20's, but I'm still angry. I spent three months in a bomb shelter when I was a kid."
After that, I decided it was time to make another attempt at the famous Belgrade nightlife. So, I tried to find the renowned barge bars on the Sava river. I learned that yes, there were buses that ran after midnight, but they only came once an hour. I caught one of these buses and was deposited, alone, on the opposite side of a bridge facing the city. Below were dimly lit walking paths leading out to what looked to be buildings, partially open air, built on the water. (I guess I was expecting actual ships?) The first barge I went to was filed with about half a dozen very goth-looking young people not inclined to talk to someone who looked, admittedly, more like a narc. So I moved on to the next barge, where there was a group of friends chatting quietly around a table on the deck, and no one else. Again, they didn't look like they wanted to spend the rest of their evening trying to practice their English with a stranger. I moved on to the third where I wouldn't have had to worry about an awkward conversation as there was no one there. Back out on the walkway I passed a few that were closed. The next one that was open also had about half a dozen people, but I was no longer in the mood now anyway so went in, had a shot of rakia (Rakia is the local spirit made out of any variety of fruits. I can attest to the fact that mistletoe flavor is disgusting.) and quickly left.
Belgrade nightlife. Nuts to that. Ritchfield, Utah is more exciting after midnight. (OK, that's an exaggeration, but not by much.)
Leaving Belgrade the next day, I thought I'd visit an outdoor ethnographic museum, but on the train met a Canadian Serb who told me about a music festival nearby. "You have to go. If you want to see what Serbia really is about, this is the way to do it."
Why not? A few short bus rides later, I stepped off into the crowded streets of a small town nestled in the mountains. It was absolutely crazy. Groups of musicians, mainly Roma (Gypsies) were wandering the streets playing trumpets. Every street was lined with small stalls hawking trinkets, beer, hats, camo, smoked meats, beer, army surplus, sweaters, and beer. On the curb, there was a gypsy breast-feeding. A few minutes later, another one, straight from central casting and wearing a suit coat four sizes to large for him, tried to charge me for the port-a-potties. It looked and sounded like Tijuana - not that I've ever been, but it's how I imagine it. I went to the main concert which started with trumpet bands playing traditional music, but ended with the typical pop hits. I had a good time dancing with a group of lovely young local women who all wanted to have their picture taken with me. (I think it must have been the hat.) After they left, I wandered back past the vendors and stopped for some sauerkraut stew, cooked over open fires in huge black iron cauldrons.
As the night was winding down and the wee hours of the morning approached I ran into a group of drunk young men, and after giving me a beer, they also tried to explain Serbia's history: "Yes - we did terrible things, but everyone did! But we're the only ones that get blamed." (Hmmmm... this sounded familiar.) It was nearly dawn, so I excused myself, and with a bunch of handshakes and a request to tell people the truth about Serbia and it's people, left them to their drunken revelry.
In the end, I liked Serbia well enough. The people were actually quite nice to me, when they really had no reason to be. Boring Belgrade ended with a blow-out in Gucha. As for the politics, and it's bloody history, well... a young woman I talked to in Belgrade summed it up pretty well: "About half the people still feel that we're the victims, and being judged unfairly. The other half acknowledge what we did, hope we've learned from it, and can move on."
Half and half. I don't know that those are great odds when it comes to peace, but with luck, they'll be good enough.
About that. In 1999, mostly Muslim Kosovo decided they wanted to break away from Serbia. This probably shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone, since unrest in Kosovo was what started the Yugoslav War a few years before. Serbia, whose relationship with Kosovo can only be described as "It's complicated", started to move troops in there to,well... probably not to party. (Serbia doesn't have the best track record with things like human rights or relations with the Muslims - more on that later. ) SO... many of the Muslims living there started to flee into neighboring Albania. The UN told Serbia to knock it off. They didn't, so... NATO bombed them.
Since the US led the UN's bombing of Serbian forces a few years before that in order to helped the Bosnians, the US still isn't very popular in Serbia. They don't seem to hold it personally against anyone (me, for example) but I'm guessing there won't be a Bill Clinton Boulevard there anytime soon the way there is in Kosovo. In fact, in the military museum, and very proudly displayed, are pieces of the US stealth bomber they shot down. (Now, I'm no huge patriot, but I have to admit that did bug me a bit, seeing kids posing for photos of the display along with captured US army fatigues.)
The museum likes to point out that we dropped cluster bombs on the city, killing 15 civilians. I would like to point out that technically the USA doesn't subscribe to the convention that bans them, so...
Besides, it was technically NATO that conducted the strikes. The US didn't accidentally blow up that refugee column, or those hospitals, or that market, or the Chinese Embassy, or that passenger train. Blame NATO. It's all a part of what those in the business call "Collateral Damage". Sometimes, to make an omelette, you gotta break a few eggs. Or kill 500 civilians, plus or minus. Anyway, Kosovo got a country out of it, and it's beautiful. (Actually, it's really not. Pristina, the capitol, was one of the saddest capitol cities I've ever been to. One of the funniest postcards I ever sent was from there - it's basically a photo of a nondescript street showing dilapidated concrete buildings lined with old cars. I'm not sure if the photographer saw the irony, but I did.)
Anyway, back to Belgrade. The city has other things of note, including one remaining mosque and, of course, a fortress on a hill overlooking the city. (Another fortress - you can't swing a dead cat around here...) My favorite, though, was the Tesla museum. (Sorry, about this - I'm going to go on a slight nerd tangent here and unless you want to learn about Tesla (Yes, the cars are named after him.) you can skip on down to my party experience in Belgrade, marked with an **.)
Nikola Tesla was a Serb born in what is now Croatia. He was an inventor and contemporary of Thomas Edison - he even worked for Edison for a while. In fact, Edison apparently offered him $50,000 to fix a few designs, and when Tesla came to collect, Edison essentially said "Oh, sorry - I was joking. But thanks, anyway." Then, when Tesla didn't get his requested raise to $25/ week, he quit. (Can you really blame him? Edison was, by all accounts, kind of a prick.)
Bad luck seemed to follow the man - he developed radio a year before Marconi, but his equipment was destroyed in a fire. A year later Marconi then used some of Tesla's inventions to transmit the first radio transmission. But of all the things Tesla is noted for, including his eccentric personality, and the invention of radio control, the thing that he should be most famous for is something that you are using to read this blog. Something that I'm using to write it. Something that has allowed Edison's light bulb to be in almost every home on the planet. Two words: Alternating Current. (A/C for short.) Today, this is the method by which electricity is effectively and safely transmitted all over the globe. Previously, Edison had insisted that D/C was the way to go, perhaps, in no small part, because delivering D/C would have made Edison a considerable amount of money. Meanwhile, Tesla gave up his patents for A/C in order to benefit humanity.
Later, after many failed attempts to prove that energy could be transmitted without wires, and predicting the internet, Tesla died poor, and alone, in an apartment in New York.
No good deed(s) go unpunished, I suppose.
** Belgrade has a reputation as a party town, so my first night there I decided to hit up a few bars. The first one recommended by Lonely Planet was out of business. The second, too, was locked up. The third closed just as I got there. I asked around, and the theory I was told was that since all public transport had shut down at about 11:30, everyone had already gone home. Of course what this meant was that not only would I be going to bed completely sober, I also now had a three mile walk back to the hostel.
The next day I went to the largest Orthodox church in the world. After 100 years, it's still not finished being built, and judging by the inside, it might take another 100. (It was at this very point that, after having been away from home for over seven months, that I decided it was time to return to the States. My site-seeing was no longer fun and I realized I was simply filling time and going through the motions. On any given day back home this church might have been fascinating, but today my reaction was: This is it?)
Josip Broz Tito's grave was next, along with his famous baton collection. Every year on Tito's birthday, youth from around Yugoslavia participated in a relay bringing the leader a hand-made baton. Since he was President-For-Life, and lived a good long while, there are now thousands of these things, and many are on display next to his tomb.
That night I ate a dinner of Karadjordje's steak (Which looks like a giant deep-fried slug, or worse, but tastes alright -it's filled with gooey cheese!) and talked to a young man and his friends about how they felt concerning Serbia's history. It was a shot-gun conversation, with one friend dropping in conflicting information and opinions, so I got a rather confusing review of the history I sort-of knew: 700,000 Serbs killed in concentration camps by the Nazis and Croats, Tito's rise to power, etc. But there were a couple things said that stood out about the Yugoslav war: "It was like, "We're neighbors, friends, relatives, but now... I'm going to kill you." because it didn't fit in with their idea of how their country should be." They pointed out that Bosnia being declared a "Muslim" country was also a dividing point. "Muslim isn't a country, it's a religion." I then asked about Kosovo...
Friend 1: "In 1998, when Kosovo broke away, we did not, I swear, try to ethnically cleanse the Albanians."
Friend 2: "But we did a pretty good job in Bosnia, so...."
Friend 1: "Look, yes, we committed war atrocities..."
Friend 2: "You keep saying that."
Friend 1: "But everyone did! Somehow, we are the only ones that keep getting blamed and that people remember."
Me: "So, what about the future?"
Friend 1: "I think it has settled down, but it's going to take time. I'm only in my early 20's, but I'm still angry. I spent three months in a bomb shelter when I was a kid."
After that, I decided it was time to make another attempt at the famous Belgrade nightlife. So, I tried to find the renowned barge bars on the Sava river. I learned that yes, there were buses that ran after midnight, but they only came once an hour. I caught one of these buses and was deposited, alone, on the opposite side of a bridge facing the city. Below were dimly lit walking paths leading out to what looked to be buildings, partially open air, built on the water. (I guess I was expecting actual ships?) The first barge I went to was filed with about half a dozen very goth-looking young people not inclined to talk to someone who looked, admittedly, more like a narc. So I moved on to the next barge, where there was a group of friends chatting quietly around a table on the deck, and no one else. Again, they didn't look like they wanted to spend the rest of their evening trying to practice their English with a stranger. I moved on to the third where I wouldn't have had to worry about an awkward conversation as there was no one there. Back out on the walkway I passed a few that were closed. The next one that was open also had about half a dozen people, but I was no longer in the mood now anyway so went in, had a shot of rakia (Rakia is the local spirit made out of any variety of fruits. I can attest to the fact that mistletoe flavor is disgusting.) and quickly left.
Belgrade nightlife. Nuts to that. Ritchfield, Utah is more exciting after midnight. (OK, that's an exaggeration, but not by much.)
Leaving Belgrade the next day, I thought I'd visit an outdoor ethnographic museum, but on the train met a Canadian Serb who told me about a music festival nearby. "You have to go. If you want to see what Serbia really is about, this is the way to do it."
Why not? A few short bus rides later, I stepped off into the crowded streets of a small town nestled in the mountains. It was absolutely crazy. Groups of musicians, mainly Roma (Gypsies) were wandering the streets playing trumpets. Every street was lined with small stalls hawking trinkets, beer, hats, camo, smoked meats, beer, army surplus, sweaters, and beer. On the curb, there was a gypsy breast-feeding. A few minutes later, another one, straight from central casting and wearing a suit coat four sizes to large for him, tried to charge me for the port-a-potties. It looked and sounded like Tijuana - not that I've ever been, but it's how I imagine it. I went to the main concert which started with trumpet bands playing traditional music, but ended with the typical pop hits. I had a good time dancing with a group of lovely young local women who all wanted to have their picture taken with me. (I think it must have been the hat.) After they left, I wandered back past the vendors and stopped for some sauerkraut stew, cooked over open fires in huge black iron cauldrons.
As the night was winding down and the wee hours of the morning approached I ran into a group of drunk young men, and after giving me a beer, they also tried to explain Serbia's history: "Yes - we did terrible things, but everyone did! But we're the only ones that get blamed." (Hmmmm... this sounded familiar.) It was nearly dawn, so I excused myself, and with a bunch of handshakes and a request to tell people the truth about Serbia and it's people, left them to their drunken revelry.
In the end, I liked Serbia well enough. The people were actually quite nice to me, when they really had no reason to be. Boring Belgrade ended with a blow-out in Gucha. As for the politics, and it's bloody history, well... a young woman I talked to in Belgrade summed it up pretty well: "About half the people still feel that we're the victims, and being judged unfairly. The other half acknowledge what we did, hope we've learned from it, and can move on."
Half and half. I don't know that those are great odds when it comes to peace, but with luck, they'll be good enough.
