We woke up in Serbia this morning, in Belgrade. If you read yesterday's entry, you'll remember it was very modern, very young...and very interesting. We saw equally interesting things today but there were some thought provoking sights as well, and some shifts in the norm.
We left the hotel in our new mini bus with a new driver. He's a young guy, but a good driver... he lives in Tuzla, (Bosnia) but is a Serb. His father owns the bus company.
We drove several hours through spectacular mountain scenery -- high, high mountains, a number of rivers, what appeared to be nice farms in the occasional mountain valleys. We saw cows, sheep, goats; crops were potatoes, corn, melons of sorts, and much grass/grain for feeding the livestock. There were haystacks everywhere... and we note that the Serbian haystacks and Bosnian haystacks were just the same.
After those hours going west, we passed out of Serbia and into Bosnia. It was relatively easy, though it took a while. First, at the Serbian border station (one fo the guards looked a lot like a Jay Leno younger brother.. but no one was smiling) they carefully scrutinized our passports and stamped them as we were leaving the nation; Then we drove 100 yards or so and had a little longer wait as the Bosnians scrutinized our passports and let us in.
There are a lot of impressions and some tangled history. First off, this is WILD landscape.. high mountains, sweeping valleys, narrow passes between the valleys, precipitous heights. My pictures are a little unsatisfactory since they were taken from a moving bus and since the day was cloudy and hazy (we had a little rain and a ferocious wind storm). WE probably drove thru 15 or 20 tunnels cut out of the rock... there wasn't enough flat real estate to build roads otherwise. Our driver said many of the tunnels were built by young, patriotic Yugoslavs under Tito (who everyone seems to miss). They are holding up well, just carved out of the granite cliffs. The road was really quite good and there were no real white knuckle moments today.
Our only sightseeing stop was a bridge over the River Drina... built in the 1570's by one of the Mehmet's (or rather at his behest). It still stands but is no longer carrying auto traffic. It is very beautiful. For those of you who have read the book about the Bridge on the Drina, this isn't the original in the book; that one is now gone. But this is its contemporary.
There are beautiful sights, but there are also sad ones... all along the way are burnt out/destroyed hulks of buildings... left over from the various rounds of fighting that have taken place here since, oh, maybe the 1300's... this has never been a peaceful place and it still has its tensions just a pin prick below the surface. The Kosovo War led to NATO bombings in Serbia in 1999, but there were other rounds of fighting throughout the centuries. Kosovo became an Ottoman possession in 1389 and stayed thus until 1912 when Serbia took it back. Now it is engaged in a shaky try at independence. Then there are the issues of ethnicity and religion. It is funny that the Ottomans never particularly tried to force their conquests to adopt Islam, though many did. They merely taxed the people they conquered, brought some of their children into the janissary corps, spread ideas, etc. There was great brutality when people opposed conquest, but in many cases those who were conquered almost volunteered for it, since the taxes under the Ottomans were less than other situations.
Nevertheless, the tide of nationalism that hit Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries also infected the Balkans... and led to the incident that seemed to precipitate WWI. The aftermath was bungled in the Balkans (as well as elsewhere, in the world's efforts to dismantle the empires as quickly as possible. Loose ends are prone to catching fire and exploding, and that is what happened.
So the lull of the Tito state, a Yugoslavia that had never really existed per se before, was fractured again after the fall of communism and once again we are seeing the struggle and frustration of the current situation. I think it's probably exacerbated by the world economic issues right now. I don't have the sense that bullets will be whizzing over our heads as we tour, but I do have the sense that there is unfinished business here and that the solutions may not be arrived at with sweetness and light.
But what most haunts me is those high mountain valleys.. they must have been relatively easy to defend.. so few mountain passes, so few alternate routes to anywhere. no wonder it's been a combative part of the world! In Sarajevo for the first time we are seeing both mosques and orthodox churches/
We got into Sarajevo about 7 tonight. Tomorrow we will have city tours, meet with a professor at the Museum to learn more, and spend another night here. I can live with that.. the room is actually big enough for two people and very pleasant.. I have laundry dripping in the bathroom and a pair of pants hanging out the window to dry (were on the back of the hotel, so no one is in line of sight with it!! There are remnants of Olympic glory here and as I look at the mountains it is easy to see it in winter with snow shoulder deep and the slopes just waiting.
I will put on a couple of pictures... the view of Belgrade this morning from breakfast, a few scenic shots.. no kitty picture today. I didn't see any, so they are missing.
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