Dubrovnik 2011

Sveti Georgije

I've made it through, more or less, Misha Glenny's, The Balkans. Let me explain that qualification. Up to the start of WWI, I dutifully read every page. From that point on my reading began to waver, I started to skip paragraphs and pages. From WWII to the end of the book which deals with the NATO bombing of Serbia and the creation of Kossovo, I've skipped more pages than I've read. Balkan history was grim enough all the way along but with with the world wars it became even more tragic and gruesome. Atrocity upon atrocity becomes hard to take--hence my failure to read every page. And then with the war's end comes Stalinist Communism. Even Misha's at times amusing turn of phrase can't distract from the ongoing nightmare.

The horrors of the 90's had roots in the near and not-so-near past. I think that it's true that if you don't address your history you're liable to repeat it. I wish that Yugoslavia had had Truth and Reconciliation commissions when they might have been enough to prevent the catastrophe.

Yesterday we got the CAA Magazine's Fall 2015 issue. The cover story is that of Croatia's Dalmatian coast centering on Dubrovnik and Spilt. It was a reasonably interesting article that covered more than the run-of-the mill historic sites. For example, have you ever heard of the 5 km long Wall of Ston? Even tiny Vis got a tiny one word mention. This being a travel magazine there was no unpleasantness mentioned, nothing, for example, about the 90's.

In 2011, our Med cruise stopped for a day in Dubrovnik. The stop was a graphic example of modern mass tourism. Imagine the distortion of the economy and of the lives of locals with the descent of 1000s of tourists a couple of times a day in the summer on a small town.

Walking down a major street in Dubrovnik we came upon and entered the Orthodox Church of the Holy Annunciation. The church was pristine if quite spare--in fact, it seemed new. We spoke to the caretaker. Dubrovnik, he said, used to be 30% Orthodox (synonymous, really, with Serb). Now the population was 10% Serb with a slow increase in numbers as former residents returned. The caretaker was careful in what he said (and didn't say), but the overwhelming feeling was one of great sadness, and great tribulation. We bought an icon of St George killing the Dragon: St George being Zak's family's saint.

Further along was a large home being restored. It was festooned with photographs of the home during the recent conflict. The photographs showed the building roofless, its walls peppered with shell damage. The suffering was real, but the triumphalist tone was disturbing. 

We tried to get away from our fellow tourists by walking off the beaten path up and down the narrow twisting alleyways. We came upon the proverbial little old lady. She was too slim to be a classic babushka, I don't recall if her head was scarf covered. She stood in front of a table covered with examples of her needlepoint. We wondered why she was selling her wares in such an out-of-the way place far from the hordes. She said to Zak, “buy something beautiful.” Her sales pitch wasn't really off-putting because the work was very pretty. To my regret we didn't buy anything: we had spent our cash on lunch and beer in a little cafe perched between the walls and the sea on a small rocky outcrop (another attempt by us to escape our fellow travellers). I imagine the the lady was someone who lived in Dubrovnik during the war. That she was so far from the tourists made me think she was Serb, but really I don't know. 

Dubrovink was beautiful, signs of the war had been erased, the streets were filled with tourists, the sky and sea blue, and yet I walked away, sort of sad. We're not planning to visit Dubrovnik in September, instead we're planning two nights in Split.