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October 26, 2004

I survived Belgrade, Serbia

BEOGRAD, SERBIA: Beograd (a.k.a. Belgrade) had four tough acts to follow. I would recommend anyone to visit Kotor, Dubrovnik, Mostar, and Sarajevo: a week on this little circuit is as much a must-do as a week in Paris or Bhutan. In fact, I really wish I had another day on the Dalmatian coast to vist Split or some of the Croatian islands. Unfortunately, Belgrade isn't a particularly interesting destination: streets are poorly marked, the government is crooked, there are few things to see, the city reeks of diesel fumes, the food is terrible (esp. compared to Sarajevo), and some of the bad elements of the communist days survive. The city's largest Orthodox cathedral is a giant bare-concrete cavern, and two of the three major museums were half-closed. The Sarajevo-Istanbul flight was 350 Euros ($450) more expensive than the Belgrade-Istanbul flight, and I quite wish I had shelled out the dough, as it would also have avoided the 7 hour bus ride here.

I won't moan further about the annoyances here (you can discover them for yourself), except to point out one thing that I find quite offensive. The Yugoslav Military Museum, which is dedicated to "Yugoslav socialistic patriotism," proudly displays American bombs dropped on Serbia in 1999 (to stop the Serbs from kicking Albanians out of Kosovo). Also displayed are the uniform of a GI named Carpenter and pieces of a downed F-17. The exhibit concludes with a gruesome picture of a bloody corpse with the caption that NATO dropped a bomb on 7 May 1999 that killed 16 civilians. Oh, and the type of bombs used "violated international law." Of course, this bellyache comes from the government that sponsored Europe's worst genocide since the Holocaust, that supported and armed the Bosnian Serb thugs who intentionally fired upon women and children in Sarajevo, and that continues to harbour their former leaders who are accused of crimes against humanity (e.g. Ratko Mladic). And the international community (NATO) attacked Serbia to stop a the Serb army from carrying out another genocide in Kosovo. If there was any doubt that the Serbian government is still evil, their hypocrisy in this exhibit proves it. The exhibit should be taken down until the Serb government is willing to atone for Serbs' crimes against humanity in the 1990s civil war.

I would be remiss not to mention a few of Serbia's charms. Well, I can think of one. Belgrade has an excellent pedestrian mall/street. I can't tell you the name of the street because I haven't translated the Cyrillic street sign. It is like any European city's pedestrian mall, except the Serbs are quite aggressive in eyeing up the opposite sex. I thought I noticed this a lot in Sarajevo, but it really hit me in Beograd. I've been eyed up by so many girls today that by afternoon I grew worried that perhaps my fly had been down all day. (It was OK.) In fact, this particular street seems to be the Beograd meat market, since the nightlife is limited and dispersed. I like the attention, but as I learned, Serb girls' English is poor:(

Speaking of language, French is huge here--there is an Centre Culturel Francaise, a Société Generale branch, and many boulangeries. The hotel's signs are in Serbian (Cyrillic) and French. I had a conversation with a travel agent in French, even though I don't really speak French. German appears #2, with a prominent Goethe Institute and vendors who ask first if I speak Deutsche.

Tomorrow I go to Istanbul, the last city in Europe. The hotel is 200 feet from the Bosporus, the end of Europe. I suppose it's appropriate to end Summer-in-Europe at the very end of Europe.

Posted by adrianjo at October 26, 2004 12:05 PM

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