The Blaus - South America and Europe

10th of September - Belgrade, Serbia

We took an overnight train into Belgrade, and arrived at 6AM. We got into a taxi, and got totally ripped off, we paid 10 Euros to travel about 5 minutes in the cab. We have developed a skill for not getting fooled into paying ridiculous prices for things very often, but cab rides are our weakness and sometimes after a long trip we just want to get to a place to rest, and we lose our senses. The hotel we went to was booked, so we started walking around town in search of another place to stay. On our walk we ran into a siblings from Macedonia who had also just arrived in town, so we went with them to a nearby hotel where we all ended up staying.

After we dropped off our bags, we went with them to have some coffee and explore Belgrade a bit. We walked over to the old citadel that sits on a hill high above where the Danube and Sava rivers meet. This is probably one of the most important strategic locations in Europe, if not the world. Because this has been such an important location, linking the trading posts of Asia with Europe, Belgrade has been sacked and destroyed no less than 40 times in the past 1200 years. The citadel is the remains of what this city used to look like, again walled in so as to thwart invasions. What is so nice about the old citadel here is that it has not been fully restored, it still sits in ruins in some places, and really has the feel of what it used to look like. It is much larger than the forts in Dubrovnik or Split, by a long shot. The top of the citadel is now a very lovely park that has views out all over the city where children play and people go to escape the traffic and the heat of the city streets.

Inside the citadel is the Former Yugoslavian War Museum, which was incredibly detailed and full of maps and tons of information. We could not read a lot of the information, and we got the feeling that this was purposefully done. Hallway after hallway was full of old swords, knifes, cannons, and rifles dating from the Ottoman empire and earlier. When we got to the post WWI section, there was only one small room. There they proudly displayed a piece of the American stealth fighter the Serbs shot down in Kosovo in 1999, and the uniform of the US pilot that was flying the plane. This part had some English descriptions, and displayed graphs of how many troops, guns, planes and tanks NATO forces had in comparison to Serb assets, as well as the "illegal" weapons that were used by NATO troops against the Serbs. The experience we were supposed to get out of this part of the museum is to feel sorry for the undermanned Serb army who was viciously attacked by NATO. There was no mention of the ethnic cleansing and elimination of Albanians that was taking place in Kosovo by the Serbs. This was one of the more eerie feelings we have had anywhere on our trip, the people here live in denial of what happened in both Bosnia and Kosovo.

The next day we met up with the Macedonians again to visit Tito's tomb, where there is also a museum. Tito was a war hero who helped defeat the Nazi's in WWII, and also formed what was Yugoslavia of the 6 republics. He was a Communist, but not under Soviet control, and this made him very popular here for three decades until he died in 1980. He was also from a mixed family with a Croat mother and Serb father, which makes his burial in Serbia all the more interesting today. The museum was full of gifts other heads of state had given him as presents, as well as batons that were used in the annual youth relay across Yogoslavia where a baton was be passed person to person and then delivered to Tito in Belgrade. The batons were designed differently each year and were very interesting, there were over 30 of them.

In our cab to the museum, we drove by two old state buildings that had been blown up by NATO forces in 1999. The Serbian government left them that way to show the world what happened to them, although leaving such buildings in the middle of a thriving city like Belgrade seems a bit ridiculous. Our taxi driver also pointed out that there were many armed guards in front of the US Embassy, but there were none in front of the Croatian Embassy. He said that Serbians hate Americans even more than Croatians, whom they have a terribly long and bloody history of war with. When we asked the Macedonians why there was such strong anti-Americanism here, they told us that people are still angry about the NATO attack and generally don't like American interference in Balkan problems. They also said that there was never any confirmation that there were mass murders going on in Kosovo, which clued us in that they were part of the brainwashed group of Serb sympathizers that Milosovic created. It left a strange taste in our mouths, that this very aggressive country still believes that they are the victims after they waged war with the entire region and have always been involved in repressive measures against Kosovars. We decided to leave the Macedonians and walked through the upscale neighborhood of Belgrade near Tito's mausoleum, where we saw Milosovic's old house and many other mansions where mostly foreign diplomats live. All of the mansions had armed guards with large automatic weapons.

Later that day we went to an Internet cafe, and faced another strange situation. The guy who ran the place decided to turn up his little radio to blasting level when these very loud Nationalistic Serb songs were playing. He made the kids in the cafe sing along, and he marched around the cafe singing with his hands in the air. Then a song that had the American National Anthem played, but the words were very menacing, with some strong anti-American language. We felt it was time to leave as this Internet cafe seemed to be whipping into some strange frenzy, possibly as a show to us. When we paid the guy who was making all the noise and marching around the place, he was nice enough and didn't say anything to us. Overall, probably the strangest experience we have had so far.

Apart from the politics of the place, Belgrade is a very happening city, and has many nice avenues to walk along. The Skadarska district is full of cobbled streets with nice trees lining them, and cafes, bars and restaurants everywhere. It reminded us of Palermo in Buenos Aires. There are many beautiful people here, and they all love to stroll the main shopping avenue and sit at the cafes smoking and drinking coffee. We get a feeling that there is a lot going on here, and that there is money being made, we have run into a lot of foreign businessmen and the place always seems to be on the move. The food is excellent, and the city is clean and safe.

We were glad to have made a stop here, to hear how all the people involved in the recent war in the Balkans have very different opinions of the exact same events. We are still not sure how Yugoslavia survived as a union for so long with such deep hatreds that exist even today, but that does not mean that the people of these new nations don't know how to dress, party, and talk about the day their countries are going to join the EU.

posted by The Blaus @ 11:45 AM