In 2004, I visited all 25 countries in Eastern Europe. You'll find the blog entries from that trip here. In 2008-2011, I returned to see what had changed since that time. With these two visits, five years apart, I accumulated enough material for my 750-page book, The Hidden Europe: What Eastern Europeans Can Teach Us.
This blog now has many excerpts from The Hidden Europe. But who the hell reads anymore? Just look at the best photos from Eastern Europe!
This map reflects how I define Eastern Europe. Eastern Europeans love to deny that they're in Eastern Europe. I tackle how and why I define Eastern Europe the way I do in the Introduction of The Hidden Europe.
I guess Yugoslavia wasn't a long enough name for these guys, so they called their country Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Back in the 15th century Herceg (Duke) Stjepan Vukcic ran the show. So they named Hercegonia after him. I guess Hercegonia is a better than a literal translation which would be "Dukeland."
I'm not sure how Bosnia came up with its name, but the country is made up of these two regions. Hence, Bosnia-Hercegovina, or just Bosnia for lazy people like me.
If you managed to read my last book, I mean, email, then you have a bit of a background on what happened in Bosnia. After visiting Serbia, I figured I'd now get the Bosnian perspective. This story is so complicated, but I'm determined to understand it and hear all sides. Just getting to Sarajevo (the capital of Bosnia) was a lesson in the aftermath of the war.
I had to pay off a bus driver in Belgrade, Serbia to get on the bus. Earlier that day I had bought a ticket for the 10PM bus. Turns out the ticket seller didn't understand my crappy Serbian and sold me a ticket for the 10AM bus. The bus driver told me to refund the ticket (where I get 90% of the value) and then give him the cash. He pocketed the cash and let me board the overbooked bus.
I sat next to Marco, an Italian polyglot, for the 8 hour overnight ride. Marco, Maria (a Swede), and I toured much of Sarajevo together. When we arrived, we realized that we far from the city center. Kinda stupid, we thought. The reason was that we were in the Serb Republic in Bosnia.
Near any border, there is almost always an overlap with the neighboring country. For example, many Mexicans live in the US communities that border Mexico. The legal ones are called Mexican Americans.
Same goes for Bosnia. You had many Serbs living in Bosnia. Hence, the term Bosnian Serb. These Bosnian Serbs (who are Christian Orthodox) felt greater affinity to Serbia than to Bosnia (who are mostly Muslim or Catholic). So when Bosnia demanded independence from Yugoslavia, the Bosnian Serbs disagreed and started a war over it.
Slobodan Milosevic, leader of Serbia, was happy to support the Bosnian Serbs, because he wanted to expand Serbia's size. He figured that if Serbs dominate a certain region in Bosnia, then that region should become part of Serbia.
That's like Fidel Castro telling the US that Miami should be part of Cuba, since mostly Cubans live there. OK, to make that analogy work you have to pretend that the Miami Cubans would also want to be part of Cuba. And that's a bit of a stretch of the imagination.
But the Bosnian Serb region wasn't contiguous, so the Serbs (with Milsoevic's support) proceeded to clean out the area of those who weren't like them. Those who were not Orthodox had to go or be killed. That's like the Cubans of Miami forcing out everyone in southern Florida who can't dance well.
The Bosnian Serbs succeeded and today there is a contiguous region that is 95% Serbs. That region is called the Serb Republic of Bosnia. Although part of Bosnia, it is quite independent, yet not part of Serbia.
That's the result of the 1995 Dayton Accords. Why they went to Ohio to settle this Balkan dispute is a mystery to me.
We thought the bus from Belgrade would put us in the center of Sarajevo. Instead it left us on the outskirts of Sarajevo, which is in the Serb Republic. Why can't they drop us off at the city center? Because the Serbs and non-Serbs still hate each other so much that they can't even share a stupid bus station!
None of the ATMs in the Serb Republic accepted the cards from a Swede, an Italian, and an American. So we took a taxi and paid in Euros to make the final couple of miles to Sarajevo.
Sarajevo is beautiful city nestled among mountains. Wood panelled shops line a nice pedestrian street. What makes the city cool is that it's a perfect blend of Muslim, Catholic, and Orthodox religions. For instance, I walked into Christian Churches and while having a drink I heard a Muslim on a Islamic mosque minaret announcing the call to prayer.
I encourage you to visit, especially during the winter. I can see that it was a great location for the 1984 Winter Olympics. Sadly, ten years later Sarajevo would be a victim of the longest siege in the history of modern warfare.
The siege of Sarajevo lasted from 1992 to 1995. It was fought between the forces of the Bosnian government (who had declared independence from Yugoslavia) and Serbian paramilitaries (who sought succession from the newly-independent Bosnia).
An estimated 12,000 people were killed and another 50,000 wounded during the siege. I saw all the new grave stones near the Sarajevo stadium. It's a sobering site.
An average of approximately 329 shell impacts per day during the course of the siege, with a high of 3,777 shell impacts on July 22, 1993. They have painted the shells on the streets, so now they look like flowers.
I walked down "Sniper Alley" where they are still plenty of signs of artillery holes.
This is as close as I've been to a war zone. If you pay attention the war scars still dot the city, but it's peaceful now.
During the siege Sarajevo citizens had to cut down cut down and burned park trees and benches to keep warm during the winter. How did they eat?
Using just simple shovels, the Sarajevo civilians dug a 1km tunnel out to the airport to get supplies from the Red Cross. This was the life line to those who were stuck in the city. NATO bombings finally ended the siege. Here's a case when a country was dying for the US to intervene, but we took our time.
In a way, the Bosnian Serbs got what they wanted. The Serb Republic in Bosnia is almost its own country, although they share the Bosnian currency. They evicted all the non-Serbs out of their region. The only thing they didn't get was being able to part of Serbia.
Although the Dayton Accords said that everyone has a right to return to their original house, few do. After all, if you were a Muslim or Catholic would you move into the Serbian Republic of Bosnia after that war? Let's just say you might not feel too welcome.
Meanwhile, the Bosnians returned the favor and forced most Serbs out of the areas in Bosnia where they were a small minority. Those innocent Serbs also aren't too keen to return to their former homes.
All this fighting for basically one reason: religious intolerance. They speak the same language, they look the same, and they're all nice to me.
My education in the Balkans continues....
September 14, 2004
Once again people warned me not to go to their neighboring country and to be very careful. I’m so used to hearing such warnings and so used to finding out that they are exaggerations that I just nod, smile, and buy my ticket anyway.
But this time, I was a bit wary. In the previous edition of Lonely Planet they list the Bottom 10 things in Eastern Europe (the new edition doesn’t have this list). Number 8 is “Most of Bulgaria.”
That’s pretty sad. Especially when you see that the rest of the list consists of specific places like some country's National Museum of History. It kinda sucks when experts simply say that your entire country stinks.
Bulgaria certainly didn't give me a good intro. It wins the award for the bumpiest ride I've taken in Eastern Europe (Albania is a close second). It was an overnight bus from Skopje, Macedonia. I felt I was trying to sleep on a jackhammer.
Sofia has a million people, is at the foot of the cool Vitosha mountain range, and is the highest capital in Europe (545 meters / 1600 feet). Although I raced through Bulgaria's capital, I was impressed with it.
There are a couple of monuments (Church and Roman Ruin) that the city has built around.
The highlight is an enormous church dedicated to the 200,000 Russians who died fighting the Turks to help give Bulgaria its freedom.
It helps to follow the map for the rest of my journey.
From Sofia I headed south to Rila Monastery. UNESCO Protected, it's an amazing site. It's nestled in the magical and inviting Rila Mountains.
Audrey, my host in Skopje, lamented that she doesn't get to go backpacking because the Macedonians aren't into it. For example, one Macedonian guy she was with wanted to hike up a mountain on the paved road with the cars instead of the steeper dirt trail. Who are these guys? Do they get pedicures too?
I flashed Audrey my Appalachian Trail credentials and we headed up the Rila Mountains. It was quite cold. We camped right where the tree line ended because I feared morning dew. We woke up with frost on the tarp. Little did I know that would be the last time I would sleep under my treasured tarp.
We climbed up to the 7 lakes, despite warns that the trail was treacherous and that the huts were closed. It was magnificent.
I had the bright idea to do some cross country trekking. That was fine until we took a break. I pulled out the tarp to get to the food.
Audrey's knee was swollen so I told her to get moving while I packed up. She probably would have noticed that I left the tarp behind. My beloved tarp. The one I used throughout the Appalachian Trail. Now gone forever. Lost on a lonely mountain, off trail, near a pile of snow. Snow will bury it soon. I suppose that for a tarp it's a good way to go.
I will miss my tarp.
Although my backpack was quite light after the break, I just figured it was because we consumed food and water. I didn't realize my tarp's absence was the other cause.
On the way down, we met two friendly Bulgarian geologists. They offered to drive us 10kms out of their way to get us to a town south of Rila. We made an invisible camp in the city and it was there that I realized that my tarp wasn't around. I was very sad. :-(
It's strange, I've broken my camcorder and lost nearly half my luggage, but losing my tarp bummed me out the most.
We took a 6AM bus to Plovdiv and soon after we arrived, a well dressed woman tried to pick pocket Audrey's backpack. Although a bit distraught, we shrugged it off.
About 30 minutes later, two 12-year old girls also tried.
Audrey's been ripped off before in Bulgaria. Not sure why they don't target me. Maybe I look poor. I'm certainly not alert. I'm still not sure if my cell phone was swiped or if it just fell off.
In retrospect I should have leveled all these women, but I was too dumbfounded by the experience. Maybe I was too chicken. The 12 year old might have a mean left hook....
Ignoring the pilfering women, Plovdiv was a nice town. The old town is packed with 18th and 19th century homes. It also has a coolest Roman ruin in the country. Nevertheless, Plovdiv is nothing spectacular, but still worth a stop if it's on your way to some place cooler.
Audrey had to go back to work, so I bid her farewell and then studied Bulgarian history.
I get so tired of hearing Europeans sniff at the short history of America. Most of the civilized history in Europe is around 1,200 years old. Big deal. America is about 500 years. Both of us are toddlers compared to the Egyptians and Persians.
So I got excited when I learned about the Thracians who came out of the Bulgarian caves and created a real civilization from 6000 BC to 2000 BC. OK, so they were making cute bronze objects while the Egyptians were building pyramids, but at least the Bulgarians can go back that far for their culture.
Turks dominated Bulgaria so strongly that they nearly forgot their origins. But a monk wrote the first complete history of the Slav-Bulgarian people in 1762. Who knows how much he made up, but today Bulgarians take it as fact. Yes, winners write history. He traveled across Bulgaria reading the history to illiterate people and igniting a long-forgotten national identity.
In 1877 Russian finally beat the Turks. Turks ceded 60% of the Balkans to Bulgaria. But the western powers, in all their wisdom, decided to nullify that and redefined the Balkan borders. Those borders haunted the peninsula ever since: during the next 67 years each Balkan country fought up to six wars over border issues!
For example, to finally get rid of the Ottomans, they had the first Balkans War (1912). A year later the winners fought each other and Bulgaria lost.
Bulgaria tried to remain neutral during WWII, but Hitler forced them to join him. When the tide turned against the Germans, the Bulgarians tried to swap sides and join the Allies. No luck: Russia invaded Bulgaria and blessed them with communism.
In the first elections in 1990 Bulgaria had the dubious honor of being the first country in the former USSR to elect communists back to power.
Today Bulgaria is struggling. The EU rates it low on a variety of metrics. The most telling sign is that the population has actually fallen by 503,000 people since 1992. Ayn Rand predicted it: the engine of the economy has stopped after years of oppression.
Armed with that info, I entered the historical city of...
Veliko Târnovo, capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1393), is laced with history. The Yantra River winds through a gorge in the centre of the city and picturesque houses cling to the cliffs.
The ruined Tsaravets Citadel, almost encircled by the river, was a vast fortress sacked by the Turks in 1393. The rebuilt Church of the Blessed Saviour at the top of the hill has the best wall paintings I have ever seen. It's very modern (done in 1980s) and quite cool.
You can look down on the foundations of the ruined Royal Palace, home to 22 successive tsars. Execution Rock is a daunting bluff directly to the north, where traitors were once pushed into the Yantra River.
Veliko Târnovo is the best town I saw in Bulgaria. Try to check it out during their summer light and sound shows.
Although I wasn't the target of thieves, for once someone's warnings about the thieves in Bulgaria was true. They exist. OK, so they're not very good at their craft, but they're around.
Romania was the next country on my list. Logic told me that I should get as close as possible to the border. I went to Ruse, Bulgaria. The ruse of taxi drivers wasted my time. They told me there was a way to get through the border, but there isn't. You can't even walk across the border and there are no buses on the other side. I'll tell you what happened in my next email.
In this trip, like my Appalachian Trail thru-hike, I have been steadily going south. Dublin, Finland, and Estonia were nice in June. Now they're freezing, while I was in shorts in the Balkans.
But the bad news is that I'm turning around and heading up north into Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. October here isn't like California. Temps are freezing at night and snow dusts the mountains. I'm looking forward to Turkey.
I really want the Venetians to invade and take over America.
Just think, we would finally have some really beautiful cities in the USA. And some good pizza and pasta too.
The Venetian Empire spread down the Croatian Coast. I just wish they had spread all the way to America, because they just did a fabulous job with whatever city they touched.
The Dalmatian Coast is the crown of Croatia, and the city of Dubrovnik is the finest jewel on that crown. Here's a simple map.
Maria (the Swede) and Marco (the Italian) walked me to the train station in Sarajevo and bid me farewell.
I arrived late at night in Ploce, Croatia, which is near Baina on the map. I camped and took the 5 a.m. ferry to a small island, hoping to cross it by bus. No bus on Sunday. So I hitchhiked with a guy who was delivering bread. I bought some bread off him to thank him, even though he wanted to give it to me for free.
From that small town I hopped on a ferry to Korcula.
Korcula is pronounced "Core-chu-la". Marco Polo, the ultimate world traveler, made this trip I am on look like a daily commute for him. He started his trip across Asia from his little house in Korcula. It's still there, although not in great shape.
Polo's journey through Asia lasted 24 years. He reached further than any of his predecessors, beyond Mongolia to China. He became a confidant of Kublai Khan (1214-1294). He traveled the whole of China and returned to tell the tale, which became the greatest travelogue.
Although the temps were warm, the citizens told me that it gets quite windy and cold in the winter, although it never snows. So the smart Venetians built a high wall around Korcula to block the wind and made tight convoluted little streets to also deter the
wind. It makes for a delightful city.
I crossed the island of Korcula by bus to get to Vela Luka, a simple but cute town. I grabbed the ferry to the town of Hvar.
Hvar is another spectacularly romantic city at the base of several small hills. At the summit of a hill is a castle that's worth checking out.
I slept in Hvar and took a crowded bus to port of Stari Grad. While an Italian couple looked after my bags I ran a couple of miles to the old town of Stari Grad (which means "Old Town" in Croatian). Stari Grad was another cute town with a rich Venetian heritage. I ran back just in time for my ferry to Dubrovnik.
I saved the best for last and took a 7 hour ferry to Dubrovnik. Just the ferry ride itself was marvelous, passing endless islands along the Adriatic Sea. I sat outside, reading a book while reveling in the warm temps.
Dubrovnik is like Venice's ugly sister. But Venice is such a hot sister, that Dubrovnik is still incredibly beautiful.
It's a horrible crime that the Serbs shelled Dubrovnik during the war. It had absolutely no military value. They ravaged the city with bombs. Fortunately, the Hague also thought is was a bad idea and sentenced the Serb admiral for 7 years in jail:
International aid helped repair Dubrovnik. The upside is that the rooftops and cobble stoned streets are all new.
Maybe the Serbs should shell San Francisco....
See this picture?
I swam from Dubrovnik to that island. It looked pretty close, but after 45 minutes of swimming I realized that it's not. Luckily no motor boats ran me over and I only cramped up at the end.
The best part of swimming to the island is that the ferry doesn't check for tickets so you save $6 bucks. ;-)
But bring sandals because walking all over the island on bare feet is more challenging than swimming there. There are a couple of old buildings, including a fort to see there.
The only negative on Dubrovnik is that it's like a NY grid in a bowl. So it misses the charm of many Venetian designed cities which have circuitous streets and random plazas sprinkled around for variation. But it least the edges have mini hills that adds a cool dimension.
Go to Dubrovnik. It's the poor man's Venice and that's still pretty darn good.
When I was going from Slovenia to Hungary, I stopped for 24 hours in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. It's a very nice city, with an old section on a hill. For fun I went to a Tolkien's Cafe, which has a Lord of the Rings feel to it. You don't need to linger there, but it's worth a peek if you're flying into it.
The past two emails have made the Serbs look like the bad guys in the conflict. But as the Serbs like to remind me, the Croats were allied with the Nazis and did some of their own ethnic cleansing in the 1990s when they pushed Serbs out of Slavonia, a popular Serb region in Croatia.
Croats will tell you that the Serbs started it. That's correct. After all, all the weapons in Yugoslavia were in Serbia. So there's no reason why the Croatians would start a war with Serbia. It's like Estonia attacking Russia.
Although all parties share part of the blame, I conclude that the wars in the Balkans during the 1990s were basically the fault of the Serbs. After all, when I ask them what started the conflict, they get flustered and bumble through the answer like child who is guilty and knows it. Meanwhile, the non-Serbs give a crisp and clean answer: "The Serbs started it."
The average tourist has no clue of any of these tensions. So you can visit the Dalmatian Coast and delight in one of the most beautiful regions of the world.
I was waiting in line to buy my bus ticket to from Dubrovnik to Montenegro when I turned around and saw Marco and Maria! I thought I would never see them again after we parted ways in Sarajevo, Bosnia.
Maria decided to explore Croatia some more before returning
home to Sweden. Marco and I bid her farewell and then boarded the bus to Montenegro.
My adventure in the Balkans continues...
September 17, 2004
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