Serbia

This post might be a little longer than I usually write...but I hope you'll stick with it :-p

View from the hostel balcony.
(Bright square on the right is the sign for the hostel)

[I apologise in advance for what I am writing will all seem very ignorant to many probably. I know how limited my experiences are and my understanding, I can only write based on what I have experienced in my short life.]

Serbia.

Where do I start with Serbia?

Well first let me tell you a little background information about a past experience of mine...

When I started college, as far as I can remember, I didn’t have that much of a bug for travelling. I liked the idea of visiting other places but I had no real passion or motivation for it myself, though I knew I might want to eventually.

Then one day at an after college performing arts club one of the teachers told us about a trip to Kosovo to do workshops and activities in a Summer School for orphans affected by War. I don’t think I’d ever even consciously heard of Kosovo, but something about this trip gripped me in a way no other ‘travelly’ thing had done before, and I knew I wanted to go. I somehow managed to get a place on the trip which had limited places, and so went out to Kosovo with 4 other people from my college, and a load of six formers from a school down south, to help with drama workshops for the kids there (in the town of Gjakova).

There’s so much I could say about this trip, but I don’t feel this is the place. Just to say a few things; I think it is what started me wanting to travel, and see other places. But much more than that it opened my eyes like nothing has ever done since I think. I know people say that a lot, but it really did.

I was only at college and had not experienced a lot at this point. Just getting my head around this other world going on at the same time as mine – people like me all speaking in different languages and living their lives whilst I did – was mind boggling  …but more so, seeing just a glimpse of the effect of war on people. 

I know there are many different reasons wars happen – and maybe arguments and debates, and in England our own familys and ancestors have been affected by this in our own land, and though it is only a few generations above us, we don’t really understand -  or I don’t anyway - But being in Kosovo that Summer taught me one thing more than anything: war is not a good thing. It is a devastating thing. And it’s effects go on for so many years. These may seem like obvious statements/observations, but to see for myself, the broken hearts, shattered familys, pain and desolation – years after – I really KNEW it. Not just for a GCSE English essay, or high school anti-war poster, but in real life: People my age telling me what they had experienced as young children. Beautiful young children still divided by culture and without parents. Homeless, injured people, being ‘crazy’ because they had lost loved ones, when before they were ‘sane’ and secure like you and me.

It opened my eyes in a way that they couldn’t be shut again. It made me realise that when you see something on the news, somewhere it is really happening. And it doesn’t stop when you switch off. Again, this sounds obvious, but to really grasp this for me was a revelation.

It sounds as though the trip was all doom and gloom – it really wasn’t, what I learnt from the Kosovans more than anything is that in places where REAL tragedy and disaster like that has struck, the people find joy because they have to. I danced, laughed, clapped more there than I ever had in England. All the time. When we first arrived, and this was my first impression of the people there, I thought “Why are we here? They don’t need us! They have more life and joy than we do!”. But as their past began to unfold, and their tears were revealed, I understood the broken hearts, CHOOSING to keep living- because otherwise, they’d despair. SO inspiring were those people.

Anyway, I’ve already said way more than I was supposed to – this is supposed to be a post about Serbia!

Basically, the reason I’m mentioning this is I never really thought I’d be visiting Serbia. The Balkan War(s) were complex – and I don’t pretend to know a lot about it –but as far as I understand Serbian involvement against especially the Albanian population of Kosovo was horrific. At the time of my trip in my hugely limited understanding, one of the things that stood out to me was once on a coach journey with many Kosovans, as Eurovision played on a telly and everyone danced around the coach, the sudden abrupt change of atmosphere as the Serbia and Montenegro entry came on the screen, and the recording was immediately turned off.

My only impressions of Serbia come from this time in Kosovo, and so even though it wasn’t talked about much, I had this bad feeling towards the country, and my loyalty lay with Kosovo and the people there that had so affected my heart.  

To now find that going through Serbia was going to be our best option, I felt a little strange.

I know it might sound silly, but a tiny part of me felt like I would be betraying the Kosovans I had met and loved 7 or 8 years before. I was also partly interested to see what it would be like though. The atmosphere, and the people.

Obviously it was such a hugely different situation, I was going to the capital, and there would be no one there to welcome us - when I arrived in Kosovo I think we were greeted with dancing and welcome signs - and no one who I would really get to know, and visit their home, and hear their stories. And we would be there for such as short time.

We spent only one proper day  in Serbia, and so I won't pretend for a minute that I got a full and rounded view of the country by being in one town, for just over one day - anymore than I can pretend to have a full overview of Kosovo from spending just over a week there...

I also recently met a woman who had worked with people affected in Serbia, much nearer to the actual time of war, and she talked about the awful conditions the Serbian's had faced too. War seems to leave no one untouched.

Part of the Summer School in Kosovo aimed to mix the different cultures again and break down barriers created by the war and conflict which filtered down to individuals. Of course it is the individual citizens who are affected, though they  usually do not cause the war to happen - anymore than I could have caused the prime minister of England to make any decision he makes.

Now I know it might seem a little trite to talk about all the horrifics of war and what people have faced, and then go on to say "anyway I had a really nice holiday tra la la..." as though turning the page of a newspaper and carrying on with my life, but I felt it would be worse still to not address these background things, when I am aware of them and they do have an effect on me going into this situation (of visiting Serbia). And the fact is we did visit and I have been writing about the other places we visited...so that is what I am doing.


I had absolutely no idea what to expect Serbia to be like.

To be honest it was not much different from any other place we had visited (except for the usual slight differences in each country obviously). The first thing I noticed as we approached the station in Belgrade was the change in alphabet and different letters used (called the Cyrillic alphabet)

An old train nearby the train station.

Near where we stayed was an amazing shop which was like a bakery but also with pizza, which had everything I fancied to eat that evening we got there! So we had food and also went for a drink outside a local pub/bar. The next day we went into the centre and had an interesting day 'pottering' around the town, I won't go into much detail, just post a few pictures (as I've already talked quite enough so far!)...


Some crazy cool pottery type artwork in the city centre

This one reminds me of  Edith Nesbit's 'The Five Children and It'

We also went to a military museum in the old town but it ended up being closed. We walked around in the grounds though and outside we saw lots of different kinds of tanks.

I took a picture of this partly because it reminded me
 immensely of memorials I saw in Kosovo.

We also did a bit of shopping in Serbia - something we hadn't done much of up to this point because were trying to do things as cheaply as possible - and because we had to carry all our stuff with us when we travelled from place to place, so didn't want too much extra stuff to carry. But we bought a couple of things from local artists/street sellers- I bought some jewellery and Gareth a picture.

On the note of a slightly less local business...
Whilst in Croatia, my sister sent me a message over the internet about the Bridesmaid dress she wanted us to try on to wear for her wedding, from the shop Quiz. I looked at a picture of it online and also showed Gareth - we did a Google search and couldn't find a Quiz store in any of the cities we were planning to visit before heading back to England. So I ordered mine online and hoped when I got back to try it that it would fit! But then, in Belgrade, we walked down one of the main streets, and saw to our surprise, a Quiz store! We went in and believe it or not Gareth spotted they had the exact dress there! (I was quite impressed he could recognise it) so  I got to try on the dress! Luckily the size I had already ordered fit me well. :)

I may or may not have also bought another dress from there whilst we were there, as I wanted something to wear if we went out for a nice evening in Corfu. ;) (You will probably see that one in my next blog post!).

Despite my initial reservations, I really enjoyed my brief time in Serbia.

All in Serbia seemed peaceful and not all that different from what we experienced so far. What the individuals there had experienced, I can't tell you. I hope all is well from them now. We didn't really make any proper acquaintances or chat with people. I guess this goes to show that no matter how many countries you visit, until you know or have a relationship with the people you won't really know it fully.

Here is a little video from our time in Serbia. We made a few of these little videos and to be honest I wasn't planning to share them on here (ha!) but I thought this one might be useful to sum up some impressions of our time there.

The video also contains lots of general ramblings! Hopefully you can understand the gist of what we're saying.

Also - I find myself very annoying to watch on video. SO I won't be offended if you find that too! :P 

 

So that was our visit to Serbia!

One final thing to mention though!: At the airport checking in for our flight to Greece, we saw up close none other than Pierce Brosnan and a large crew of extras and camera men, director etc. filming a scene for 'November Man' which was pretty cool!

 ...Going back to the subject of my trip to Kosovo, I think it was that experience which also gave me the desire to visit more places and experience more things- without that, perhaps I would never have taken this trip I am telling you about!