About history of Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

A few words of explanation requires the political situation in the former Yugoslavia during the last years.

To describe it as short as possible and understand the mistrust that often Yugoslavs have for each other:

Yugoslavia was being united together by the strong personality of Josip Broz Tito. After his death, all the unresolved problems began to emerge. One dubious ideology - communism - began to replace another, far more tragic in the history of the Balkans - nationalism.

Yugoslavia broke up in a bloody way. Please note that the capital of Yugoslavia was in Belgrade and that the Serbs were the largest ethnic group in the country, some of them thought that they were entitled to dominate

the other (the ideology of "Greater Serbia"). Yugoslav Army was dominated by Serbs. The tragedy of the situation is also reflected in the fact that the Serbs, Bosnian Muslims and Croats, while religion is different, they speak the same language and if history had turned out differently they could have been one nation (as reflect the following information).

From 1971 to 1981 the number of people who feel the "Yugoslav" national identity increased. When the war broke out there was on the one hand the idea to save the federation, but it seems that they took it from all sides nationalism, which quickly grew, fueled with plenty of fatal victims of the war, more and more brutality and ethnic cleansing.

Source: Wikipedia

1 - The armed conflict began in Slovenia. It lasted a short time. Slovenia was relatively ethnically homogeneous, and with shrewd political game managed to end the conflict, which has been described as the "weekend war". For this reason, among Slovenians and Serbs there are no this kind of tension, as between Serbs and Croats, and Muslim Bosniaks. Slovenians were minor border dispute with Croatia, but fortunately there were no any war.

2 - in Croatia was completely different. The war lasted four years and resulted in many deaths. The friction between Serbs and Croats existed since the beginning of the common state, and is strong still. Tensions are being increased particularly through processes before The International Court of Justice in Hague. Croatians have no doubt that it was a defensive war, and therefore particularly difficult for them to accept the allegations of war crimes.

3 - Macedonia gained its independence peacefully, but tensions have appeared in the internal domain - the status of the large Albanian minority and external - the reluctance of Greece to the name of Macedonia and the Macedonian symbols used by the new state, received as a provocation against Greek province of Macedonia.

4 - When Bosnia declared independence, there has been the bloodiest phase of the Yugoslav wars. The situation in Bosnia was the most complicated, most mixed population, the highest sacrifice. Country which exist now is also the most complicated political body in the region, if not in the whole of Europe.

5 - In addition to the initial conflict of the Serbs against the Muslims, fighting erupts between the Croats and the Muslims, the effect of which is for instance the destruction of the beautiful bridge in Mostar.

6 - The sad epilogue was Serbo-Albanian conflict in Kosovo, dominated numerically by Albanians. There has been a NATO intervention in the form of bombing of Serbia, which took a large scale and also affected parts of the country geographically distant from Kosovo.

7 - The two newest independent state, Montenegro and Kosovo. While Montenegro is in good relations with most countries in the region and a split from Serbia, is sometimes referred to as the "divorce of convenience", and you will encounter opinions that was an economic one, it is a burning Kosovo flashpoint in the region. The situation in Kosovo seems to be calm, but Serbia is very far from the recognition of its independence and still treats them as part of their country. In addition to Serbia, there are still many countries that, for various reasons also do not recognize Kosovo as an independent country - among the most important: Russia and Spain.

  

While younger generations are sometimes more open to dialogue than their parents, they also are exposed to nationalist rhetoric and the wounds of war at the end of the last century are still fresh. In the Balkans, speaking on these subjects should be careful not to offend our sources and be aware of their point of view, for many people, they can be deeply personal issues.

Kuba.

Novi Sad

27.07
Novi Sad 

We were thinking whether hitchhike to Novi Sad, but we planned only one day there and didn't want to risk a long waiting,. We took the bus to Subotica, and as it turned out it was a good choice. At the border there was a long queue of cars, a bus drove next to them-to the the special gate. If we had hitchhiked we would have suffered agony in the car. People went out of the cars, trying to cool themselves somehow. Finally, someone started honking and extensive wave of honking started, tired Serbs returning to their homes .. 

Leaving Hungary, Hungarian border guard came and collected passports, then gave it to us and we drove a little further-for entry into Serbia. There a Serbian guard came. We got a stamp, but quite ugly (we were disappointed, we were hoping for pride certificate for entering Serbia). In Subotica we went to the ATM to withdraw dinars, then Kuba went to the bakery, and I waited in the park.

Serbian language is much easier compared to Hungarian and actually some of the words are similar to Polish.When one woman came to me, I realized that she asks if she can sit down and I nodded. Then she asked another question, and it was more difficult for me so I explained to her that I'm Polish (Poljska) and don't understand Serbian. When she pulled out a cigarette and asked the question again I realized that she asks if it's ok for me if she would light a cigarette. Thiat impressed me, of course, in a good way. 

Kuba came with warm burek. With Burek we met a year ago in Croatia, and it is a kind of pastry with cream cheese or ham. The bakery has labels VRUĆ BUREK, which means hot burek ... We did, however, think that it was a call for the lost dog (in Poland Burek is quite popular dog's name, and wróć means come back...) : P 

When we wanted to buy tickets for the next bus to Novi Sad, a gentleman wanted to help. And in the bus another guy gave us pljeskavica (a type of meat). So, our first impressions were positive-filled with helpful people. 

In Novi Sad, the heat wave struck us, we went to the city center where Vladimir came after us - our host. He took us to the house, and after little rest he took us by car to show us around Novi Sad. He showed us the damaged TV building and fortress. He was focusing a lot on the bombing made by NATO. Vladimir is a professional electrician, as Tesla and Pupin. In his view, the Serbs are good at electricity and isolation (the second because politicians isolate them from the EU). 

In the evening we went out for ice cream and Novi Sad in the evening looked like another city-a lot of people on the streets and in cafes,. The next day we drove to Bački Petrovac, a city where everyone speaks .. Slovak!Slovaks settled there in eighteenth century. We met there friend of Vladmir- Zdenka, we bought delicious pljeskavica and went to the lake. In the car Vladimir was listening to Bregovic and Kayah! (Polish singer)

Szeged

In Szeged, we met with a friend of Kuba Agnes and we left our luggage in her workplace. We did sightseeing a little, and when we sat on a bench in front of the Town Hall beautiful music played. We felt like in another world, the fatigue was gone for a while, the sun, trees, a fountain and music ..

Funny Hungarian Facts

I would like to write about what can be difficult for Polish people at the beginning (and at the same timefunny) in Hungary. Hungarians read SZ as our S, and vice versa S as SZ.
Therefore, by writing Szeged - we read Seged.

In the city can be noted signs such as:
Autoszerwis
Szeks Shop
Szupersztar
Szupermarket
Szerwusz

In Hungarian Sopot means ... oral sex
and cipo - bread

Couchsurfing

Today's post will be about couchsurfing.

Earlier, writing about Budapest, I wrote about our host Gabor. We slept in his home for free, because that is the idea of ​​a social network-couchsurfing. We started our adventure with couchsurfing in 2010. From that moment we meet fantastic people - from Spanish police officer with house with a swimming pool to a Moroccan guy with his own kasbah in the desert.