23 and 24 September Contemplation and planning in Belgrade

Should everyone be allowed to make their own mistakes? Or how do we learn best? By looking at someone else’s experiences first and evaluating these or should everyone just bump his own head?

This question haunts me, since I started working in Central European countries.

Serbia is a country with beautiful flora and fauna. But why is it that – after the fall of communism and the introduction of western products – the people do not seem aware of it? If I judge it by the enormous numbers of PET-bottles, dumped trash bags, beer cans and smashed bottles etc. this is a case of carelessness. Is this the opposite side of becoming free and getting access to goods Serbs felt long deprived of? Or is it the young careless or ignorant generation, growing up in relative abundance? Is it the educational system that can’t cope with all these new responsibilities? Questions I can’t answer. I can only compare it with my previous work in Poland, where the same situation existed after1989 and only 15 years later, there started to be a more responsible reaction to all the new goodies.

I am not writing this because Dutch residents are doing so much better, because we do not. But the general awareness is bigger. If people in The Netherlands behave ecologically careless, I’d call it indifference rather than ignorance.

In fact there is another striking comparison, with the piles of waste, when it comes to private cars. In Belgrade they are just everywhere, most prominently on the sidewalk, on the scarce bicycle lanes and in the grass at the boundary of a park. It changes the city and its social atmosphere from a collective and shared space to an individual and egocentrically claimed space. Before the public transport system in many former Central European cities was widely spread and used by many. Now it’s old and run down and certainly still heavily used, but not particularly loved by its users.

Riding my bicycle in Belgrade worked rather well. It’s fast in the central part, especially during rush hour, but you do inhale lots of green house gasses and not much oxygen. Inhaling the diesel fumes from the trucks and busses is incomparable from smoking a joint! And it’s not even humid and hot like in the middle of the summer.

But not all is grim and negative, on the contrary. I still believe that the lesser people possess the easier and more grateful they share. Is this a deep human instinct, because sharing gives us a deep satisfaction? I come to think the answer is a definite ‘yes’. For what other reason I ‘d encounter so much friendliness and extreme hospitality by many.

Discussing this with companion travelers, I also think that we in Western Europe – and The Netherlands and Germany are quite extreme – have lost something that New Zealand and the New EU Member States, even Serbia still have. This can best be expressed by naming the extremes like taking a risk versus clinging to security, hope versus fear, grabbing the opportunity versus the un-ability to let go.

I remember reading a book at least twenty years ago, with the title ’24 stories making a radical professional change in life’. According to people from here and the New Worlds this isn’t an issue at all. Nobody would even ask why you did. No, taking a new approach is applauded versus in the West it’s questioned. That’s what we have lost!

I have finally figured out how I can both see Mostar and Sarajevo, without having to put my bicycle in the underneath bag compartment of a bus. Best route is via Bar on the coast, then cycling 130 kilometer North to Dubrovnik for two days, where I will park my bike. Then take the train or bus to Mostar and Sarajevo.

The train ride to Bar will cost me 28 euro and some euro’s for the bicycle. This deal should be closed with the conductor of the train. We’ll see. Henk be good!

24 September Visit of Belgrade and Muzen

In Belgrade I visit the fort, but it’s not open on Mondays. So I just inspect it from the outside. It’s an enormous complex at the mouth of the Sava and Danube, where many battles took place. The Turkish as well as the Habsburg empire tried to conquer it.

After looking at the two largest  churches, I take off for the historical fishing village of Muzen. Life is easy going and on the market square I eat my fresh fruits and vegetable lunch, bought at the market stalls.

In the main street where all public transport passes, you can see the contrast between the times of former prosperity and beauty and the grim period expressed by ugly Soviet architecture. 


The statues bark out their realism and the buildings their savage power. The photographed building – a former air-force center - was bombed by NATO in 1999, during the Kosovo conflict. It stands out as a relic of that period.
 

On the left another expression of 'Soviet architecture', the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Here you can visit the former working chamber of Tito, but not today. The uniformed guard makes this very clear after I have parked my tiny bicycle against the enormous entrance wall. Even before I ask this .. barks out, 'No Mister'! His monkey on the rock behavior is clear to me. Henk be good, this is not The Netherlands! I make my retreat with a smile.

Back in the hostel I meet a retired French policeman, who has biked through The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden to the North Cape and back through Finland and the Baltic states, Slovakia, Rumania and who is now heading back towards Paris.


He has an impressive beard that fits the area. I struggle with my French and this gives me a taste of what lies ahead of me in November, a 4 weeks intensive language course in Lyon.

We dine together and I pack because I have to leave for the train station at half past seven in the morning.