Unfinished Business
When we decided to visit Vietnam, basically everyone that had been there before told us to hurry up, because the country is changing so fast that one will soon not be able to get that ‘Good Old Pre Big Mac Days’ feeling, meaning we would have missed the old ladies beheading live frogs in Hanoi’s market and we were risking to see – horror of horrors – machines in the fields instead of cute peasant girls breaking their backs beating rice stems around. Well, if you plan to visit Serbia, the chunkiest leftover of Yugoslavia, there’s no need to rush at all: being the country nicely established on a downward path, be sure that the ravishes of an overinflated national pride, a widespread political failure and a hand picked selection of the worst grapes of both, the capitalistic and socialist vineyards, will provide ample entertainment for years to come.
On our first day in Belgrade with our host Djordje, a retired Air Force, we drove by the bombed Air Force HQ. A serious and sinister-looking graffiti on a wall, just under a soviet-style winged statue, does not much to dispel a common feeling of obstinacy: ‘No Kosovo, no future’.
‘I spent 78 days solid on duty under the bombs, 6 hours on 6 off. I spent all the free time writing all what happened in this small notepad, which I’d love to see translated and published somewhere, so that people can understand what happened. I got stress diabetes but at least my team, commandered by Zoltan Dani, could rocket down an invisible F 117 and an F16. We became national heroes’
‘Only man to shot down an invisible plane… I wonder how that would sound on a Usa Visa application…’
He shows me the first original pictures of the wreck, formerly the glory of USAF at Le Bourget Air Force show, treasured in his perfectly ordered boxes of memories, clippings and images in his central and well trimmed Belgrade apartment, at the 8th storey of huge building that looks like a very long ship. His flat is nice and cosy, but the maintenance manager of the immensely long building was obviously born and raised in Mozambique where they are famous for their preservation techniques. The graffiti, on the other side, are not too african in style, but rather betray a certain western feel.
‘Why don’t you try to come to terms with the winners and hand over your war criminals?’ I try to soothe my itchy position. All the planes bombing Belgrade left from Italy, with the green light of a government that always supported socialist Yugoslavia.
‘In understand some of our men did terrible things, but Croatians, Bosnians and all the other parties involved did terrible things, and they just bombed us and no one else’.
Very few shades wrinkle his adamant position. A proud David who hit Goliath, with no judgements attached. He shows me pictures of large buildings with conspicuous holes in the middle.
‘Does this look a military building? And this? And this?’
I had to admit that few of those structures had a very menacing appearance, their only noticeable defect being ugliness.
‘But listen, George, you guys should be smarter, use more marketing, for God’s sake… How can you defend those chaps? It’s just two bloody bastards… Look what we did in Italy after WWII… In a single night we got the boss before he could talk, gave the papers over to the Brits and hanged him in the square, including the girlfriend because one just never knew what she knew. The day after the Americans opened the taps and money poured in…’
‘It’s not like that Marco, it’s just not the point for us. We just fought for our land, like all the countries did’
‘I understand, man, but you just do not look good outside’
At this point his girlfriend, a 42 yo specialized MD, intervenes…
‘Yes, darling, we all understand your point, but you have to understand that I am tired of living in a ghetto…’
Those were powerful words. Our hosts, far from being annoyed, probably just acknowledged what he always felt but could never never believe, or always believed but could never feel. He maintained his perfect pride and, military style, hands over the weapons, as if simply commandered to do so.
After the journey I try to get some basic facts of the Kosovo war, a conflict few can say to understand and from which Serbia has not come to terms yet. Serbians need a visa to go almost anywhere, rampant inflation destroyed savings, the end of communism finished the social vaults, stiff competitions from the east closed the factories and an insane monetary policy, more driven by military pride and less by prudency, drove the foreign banks in flocks to get the dough but weakened the already feeble competitiveness. The country looks like a car moving with the handbrake pulled: while hordes of Ryanair birds now invade Checkia, Poland and Latvia, Belgrade airport looks a dimly lit grazing ground, where flying objects are notable for their absence. I dive into Wikipedia with an eager curiosity to get some sense of that strange 1999 conflict… I fail miserably, utterly confused by a bombing of ‘The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page’. The talk page is, needless to say, endless. You just have another proof of what everybody with some historical sense always say: do not mess with the Balkans, let them sort out their own problems. But Kosovo apparently was, and still is, strategic. Still the reason for this are hazy… How can an utterly wretched, perfectly resourceless and out-of-the-way sheep paradise be strategic? Anyway everybody agrees on the fact that the Serbs, especially the young ones, need a good marketing manager very badly and very fast. All the countries around are, or will be soon, into the EU, and Serbia really risks to become a friendless ghetto.
Big time unfinished business.
My partner left Serbia with her parents at the beginning of the nineties, exchanging the school of a small Voivodina town where good grades are cool, for the average schools of Trieste, Italy, where good grades are not that cool. Her many cousins are still in Voivodina, a relatively well-off and independent province north of the Danube. Novi Sad is the capital of the region and it’s hard to choose a better place to found a city: it sits around one of the main bends of the Danube – civilized Europe’s mightiest and more accesible river – is surrounded by exceedingly fertile land and a placid line of hills, packed with woods, orchards, monasteries and springs, Budapest is 3 hours to the north, Romania 2 to the east and Croatia 1 to the west. The Austrians saw to its defence and made it an important fortress to keep the moors at bait; they built austere palaces, a grand cathedral, a brawny fortress and a very Austro-Hungaric city plan. It looks hard to fuck a place like this up, still the Serbians nearly did it, raising horrid Soviet-style buildings, mismanaging the few industries that the Nato bombers left standing and failing to protect a rich architectural and cultural heritage. The three bombed bridges over the Danube are now back in place, and one is naturally inclined to cross the main one to visit the fortress and the neighborhood of Petrovaradin, but the old quarters, the walls and the famous clock are far better enjoyed from a distance that can filter with mercy the pitiful state of the whole thing.
In the 1990s, the city (like the rest of Serbia) was severely affected by an internationally imposed trade embargo and hyperinflation of the Yugoslav dinar. The embargo and economic mismanagement lead to a decay or demise of once big industrial combines. Practically the only viable remaining large facility is the oil refinery, located northeast of the town (along with the thermal power plant), near the settlement of Šangaj. The economy of Novi Sad has mostly recovered from that period and it has grown strongly since 2001, shifting from industry-driven economy to the tertiary sector. The processes of privatization of state and society-owned enterprises, as well as strong private incentive, increased the share of privately-owned companies to over 95% in the district, and small and medium-size enterprises dominated the city's economic development.
At the end of 2005, Statistical office of Serbia published a list of most developed municipalities in Serbia, placing City of Novi Sad at No.7 by national income, behind some Belgrade municipalities and Bečej, with 201.1% above Serbia's average. In March 2007, the average gross salary in Novi Sad amounted to 42,476 Serbian dinars (approximately 525 euros or 715 US dollars) one of the highest in Serbia. The average net salary was 30,352 Serbian dinars (approximately € 375 or US $ 510 ). The region contributes to about 11% of the total national GDP, and its national income per capita is 60% over the national average.
If one expects to sit down in Vienna-style cafes he will soon be seriously dissappointed. True enough we met V., the most entrepreneurial of the varied but equally amiable lot of relatives, at the fourth floor of a very anonimous shopping mall, where one cannot understand in the least where he is, let alone from the menu that boasts none of the very decent Serbian beers in favour of European watery blockbusters. V. epitomizes the region attempt to get out of the quicksands. He spends probably more time on airplanes than on land, busy buying in China and Thailand what is too expensive to produce at home, meaning mostly everything. He is focused, well organized and hard working. Most of his relatives think he works too much, but that was to be expected, and it’s just a way to say they admire him. He says that he can easily organize anything produced, transported and sorted out around Serbia. When I asked him why he remains based in Serbia he explained that he has many contacts here to sell his goods, and it’s therefore easier. He has a reliable base of business that is hard to abandon just to move in a richer and more efficient market. And, last but not least, he can make between 20 and 30% black – therefore tax free – and this fact is a great incentive to stay in any country. Then he and Sandra started talking in Serbian, probably updating each other with the various family feuds. Indeed, few of the many uncles, cousins and brothers of the previous generation talk to each other, for the usual motives: behaviour, land, houses, marriages… Nothing new and peculiar in this, and certainly no violence involved, thank God, but one too easily jump from the familiar to the national situation, and certain aspects of the local history become clearer. Just a great amount of unfinished business.
The many branches of the family have common roots in Vrdnik, a small town to the south, on the other side of the Friska Gora hills, reached by a series of roads swinging around the sides, roads that, they tell me, are not well maintained but will be repaved next year. If you choose to get there via the ‘Partizan Road’ and are careful enough to chose a winter day of clouds and snow, don’t be surprised if at one point you’ll see, materializing from the mist, a very big cement ball on top of a tower. The ball once had many windows around, making it resemble to a Star Trek creation and, according to Nato, was a defence position, so the US architects quickly designed a very large hole into the west side. Nearly 10 years afterwards, one can still see some tables and chairs in precarious balance inside the inner floors. This curiousity, lost in the beauty of a ridge road rolling through perfectly frozen white trees, has a very strange and strong power on the imagination.
Vrdnik is a pleasant village of 4000, notable for a monastery, a spa center, a large number of cute single-family houses sparsed among the hills, and for the presence of only 8 soviet-ugly but not too tall buildings in the middle of the town. From a distance it all looks near idyllic, especially the size of the houses, all with a plot of land around, with a nice view, and well connected by many streets. The locals say they are sorry for the state of the streets, but the city council promised to repave them the next year. We hop between various houses, greeted in an exceedingly welcoming way by friends and relatives. Serbians are very hospitable and this, combined with their erratic eating and drinking habits, makes for a hard going if you’re unable to say no. It looks there’s no fixed lunch or dinner time, so if you happen to visit three families in a day, you can either starve or go through the whole proceedings of three complete feasts, just depending on the order and hour you show up.
One of the main features all these private houses have in common is that they are generously sized and equally unfinished. One out of five shows naked, unplastered bricks, inner stairways are just cement and details are seldom taken care of. It looks like a massive, somewhat superficial and speedy effort goes into the creation of a warm and cosy core, created around a stove – the sweet scent of burned coal is a constant presence over the village – a kitchen and a living room, where the ubiquitous 29-inch screen reigns supreme. Once an acceptable result is achieved, the building activity slows down to a state a trifle above utter paralisys. An acceptable explanation for this behaviour may rest in the general sense of inpermanence of residency. Many families, hundreds of thousands in fact, were displaced after the dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia. Croats who found themselves in Bosnia had to move; Serbians in Slovenia were driven back to their original homeland. With some luck, one could arrange a home exchange; worst case scenario was squatting with relatives. Well, actually worst of all was slaughter.
New Year’s Eve Party at Novi Sad begins at 1030 pm, after a meaty, multydish, hyperproteinic dinner washed down with a consistent amount of alcohol, in the form of beer (pivo, pronounced pevo), slivovica (Prune Vodka) and cheap wine. Then it’s mixing time: the boys go to the terrace and begin filling big bottles of coke with the poisonest concoctions they can conceive to obtain a perfect balance of quantity, price and toxicity, a favourite being coke mixed with red sweet wine, basically a step before pure horror. All liquids are put in plastic bottles because one cannot go to the square with glass bottles or cans, that could create damage if thrown and are tough to clean up.
Spirits are high. Very high. We are going to… the central square. I have heard about Novi Sad’s famous square party many times, but I just was utterly unable to conceive how people could have fun when packed like sardines in a square at -10 degrees celsius, full of beer with no toilets to recycle it and with a singer whose music, a mixture of red army choir anthems and cheesy melodies, could not possibly be given a performance visa in any country, with the possible exception of France.
The exact moment I get out of the car, after all the gang apoligized profusely for the state of the street, that the town will repave next year, I am hit by the humid and freezing air, and my bladder, previously filled with several beers, istantaneously demands attention. Thank God plenty of dark spots and a whole park provide the necessary darkness. I am happy to notice that my new and much younger friends make a good use of the same facilities. Soon after we are literally flowing in the central square, where other 149,188 people are already jumping eagerly at the sound of speakers pumping decibels at a level that is illegal in most western countries. A vast stage has been set among majestic Austro Hungaric palaces, a very nice cathedral and a couple of communist-era horrors. It does not take much to understand that my fears were not justified. Yes, we were squeezed like sardines and -10 celsius, yes the music was a mixture of army choirs and cheesy melodies, and yes there were no toilets around. But there was something that is often missing in similar gatherings west of the border: the spirit. A warm, spontaneous and genuine attitude of positiveness and brotherhood. Everyone knew the lyrics of the songs, no one was complaining about anything, no one was grumpy and no one could hide a smile. People of any age, fashion and level of alcohol poisining were equally jumping away and breathing off those frustrations and anxieties that are palpable in a country where the past and the future are equally grey.
The sense of frustration is easily palpable among the young people: the new generation, whose only sin was to be born in the wrong place, suffered ethnical exoduses that Europe should have learned to avoid after WWII, then discovered that airstrike alarms can indeed be followed by incredible explosions in which people die. Then soon after they were invited to learn English, and not Russian any more, and to use the internet, where they discovered that what they experienced was rather unique and the only bombings their friends on MSN have ever witnessed were in a surround movie theatre. These young folks enjoy the same problems of their same age group in other countries, namely lack of confidence, tendency to drink too much, foolish idols and lack of control on their future, and in the meantime also the problems of the generation out of WWII, a nightmarish feeling of social impermanence and individial disorder. Imagine the complex psychology of a british teenager, already unsteady on his feet of his own, and add in his past some massive home transplants, a couple of months of bombings and a bewildering and incomprehensible marketing coming from the TV. No wonder you try to learn to play very good tennis.
Serbians are justy out of the polling stations. For a hair, the pro-European president won a second term against the ultra-nationalist. Djordje wrote us a relieved e.mail: thank God. Still the path is full of immense obstacles: Kosovo is going to declare itself independent soon, a third of the country is under Nato management, the Dutch (among the worst colonizers in history) were fast to say that they wanted action against the war criminals, and the election victory was a very close call, meaning that the country is split into two halves. Yes, young Serbians, play tennis. Ivanovic and Djokovic are perfect examples to follow. The first lives in Basel, the second in Monte Carlo. They learn fast, in Serbia. |
