Serbia
from August 1 until August 6 2002

Visiting the enemy

Having witnessed the horrors of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, that for the greater part were caused by Serbians, makes it difficult to go and visit the big, bad wolf. The bogey of a destructive and criminal nation looms before our imagination. Can we survive a whole week in that country on our way to Bulgaria?

At the border - the bridge over the Drina-river - a Serbian frontier guard awaits us, Kalashnikov in hand. He looks very stern when he forbids us to take a photo of the border sign. This is not a good start. For the first time this journey we need a visa as well, fee 6 Euro per person.

The first few kilometres we're lost in wonder: good roads, houses are all intact, gardens are well kept. It looks like there's never been a war. The lack of cars in the streets is striking as well; it makes our ride very relaxed. The landscape resembles that of the Dordogne in France: shelving hills of grassland, trees and fields variegated by attractive villages.

In Ljubovija we exchange Euro in Dinar and the bank-employee invites us to eat our lunch inside the bank, instead of outside on the street. A nice Serbian, so maybe it's not as bad here as we thought.

After cycling for 70 kilometre we look for a place to put up our tent. Just like in Bosnia-Herzegovina it's better not to have any expectations in the tourist-department; there are no campsites and hardly any hotels. The hotels that do exist are very expensive and meant to be visited by high government-officials. There are virtually no tourists.
We've been cycling a long climb in a wooded area where we don't see any possibilities to put up our tent. In a bend of the road we see a house, with some grounds behind it that seem to be fairly level. We decide to ask the owners whether they permit us to put up our tent on their ground. We knock at the door and a sturdily build working man answers the door with a grim face. We are frightened and look around us for the fastest way out. Now you see, we shouldn't have entered this country of the devil.
With a big smile his whole face suddenly opens up; he looks at our bicycles and tired faces. Carefully we try to explain to him that we're looking for a place to put up our tent and spend the night. He takes us to the piece of land we point out, which is soggier then it looked from a distance, but there is a nice and dry spot as well. When we walk back to get our bicycles he seems to have second thoughts. He walks inside the house and talks to his wife, then he comes outside again, big bunch of keys in hand. He gestures us to follow him, via an outside staircase we enter the first floor. We can spend the night here, he points out. A complete home! Living room, kitchen, and shower, all for us to use.

An hour later we're sitting downstairs with the Radovanovic-family. We drink vodka and the lady of the house cooks thin pancakes. A few minutes later we are having a feast with the four of us. Communicating is very difficult; we talk with hands, feet, drawings and the point-it-book and have a lot of laughs together. This evening we decide that fear is bad advisor and make up our minds to judge nobody because of stories we hear, but just on our experiences.

We near the end of a 6-kilometre climb. The view is completely blocked by a gigantic communist monument to commemorate World War II. The vast structure contains enough concrete to build half a town and is so ugly it's almost beautiful again.

After a long descent we enter Titovo Uzice. Everybody in this town thinks the name should be changed into Uzice as fast as possible. Tito, the former president of Yugoslavia and the man who united all the different nations, is regarded as the cause of the failure of the integration and as an after-effect the misery of the past decade. We think it's a very simplistic version of the truth. Tito's policy, in which the different Slavic nations and cultures were forced to integrate in the Yugoslavian federation, has become a failure, but it's not the cause of what people have done to each other. Nationalistic political forces, mainly in Serbia and Croatia, have a great responsibility in causing the ethnic war that swept through this region so recently. Maybe this version of the truth is only shared by foreigners and not by the locals.

Uzice is an old and neglected town where thousands of cars drive about, the brands are Zastava, Yugo and Lada. After drinking some tea and coffee on a terrace we get on our bicycles again and minutes later we cycle through a nice rift with to our left and right high mountains that rise up to the sky. We take over a large group of Serbian cyclists that have a police-escort, enjoy sitting on a terrace for the second time today and find a nice campsite for our tent. The campsite is extremely quiet, because it's situated next to a Christian-orthodox graveyard.

It's 9 AM. We're having tea and coffee in Kragujevac. At the table next to us men drinks big half litre glasses of beer. They advise us to take the 'auto-put' to Svetozarevo. The auto-put, that's the motorway. Yes, that's really something for us, on our bicycles. We prefer to find our own way and that's not easy all the time. The place-name-signs with 'Svetozarevo' have suddenly disappeared, even though it's not a small town. We do see signs with 'Jagodina', a town that doesn't appear on our map. When we definitely leave Krgujevac Ilja, a 46-year old sportsman on a mountainbike, accompanies us. He explains that the town of 'Svetozarevo' has changed it's name into 'Jagodina' recently. This explains our puzzle picture. In bad German he tells us everything about his family and friends. He invites us to come along. In Sabanta he enters an apple-orchard, picks a whole lot of apples and gives them to us.

Half an hour later we arrive at his friend Voikin and family at their datsja (holiday-home). It's Saturday and that's enough reason to party. We drink raki, beer and wine and enjoy a delicious meal. It's very pleasant. People show us our own datsja for the night. For the third time in three days the hospitality, warmth and generosity of the Serbians overwhelm us. Weren't they supposed to be the enemy?

The conversations with the family are very enlightening. Everybody deplores and regrets what's happened during the war and think Milosevic and accomplices are huge criminals. They are glad Milosevic is in the Netherlands and will be brought to court there. In the end everybody on the Balkan lost in this war, the Serbian people as well. Like most countries Serbia is deeply disturbed by the war. Even though the people work hard and most of the time have a more than one job, they earn a small amount of money. There is a lot of poverty. The negative image of the country in the world is very bad for the country and it's people.

The next morning Voikin's mother pampers us again. She serves a huge breakfast of homemade strawberry-compote, cheese, fried eggs with bacon, tomatoes, cucumber, bread, coffee and tea. We barely manage to get on our bicycles with our full bellies.
Today we ride through an undulating and green landscape, under a lovely sun. We visit the Christian-orthodox monastery of Manasya and hope we can spend the night here. The male priest tells us that it's a nunnery, so Peter can't stay here. From there we do not return to the main road, but continue on the narrow tarmac-road. Who knows where we'll end today? Afterwards this decision doesn't turn out to be the best we've ever made. The path gets narrower and steeper, until the tarmac changes into an unmetaled cart track where only a mountainbike feels at home.

I do make a perfect somersault when my front-pannier hits the verge. With a couple of beautiful bruises we arrive in Panjevac, where inbreeding seems to be the standard. A few kilometres down the road we make do with a small spot in the verge of the road as overnight stay. The spot scores very low on the list of ideal campsites, but we don't have a lot of choise: it's getting dark very fast.

The lack of tourism gets painfully obvious at the caves of Rsavska Pecina. Nobody speaks English, French or German. Even the brochures are only available in Cyrillic writing. The inefficiency is Eastern bloc-style on it's best: 6 employees for 9 customers. Every task has it's own employee. The colourful caves are enchanting and very worthwhile to visit.

Yesterday we had such a long working day that we decide to stop early today. The guide in the caves advises us to go to the waterfalls about 11 kilometres further. The hotel that belongs to it is supposed to be very good. Unexpectedly we encounter a problem we never had before: the road to the hotel is prohibited for… cycling foreigners! The same sign says we're not allowed to walk there too. Funny, but we can't be stopped by something like that, we just go on.

The waterfalls are untraceable because of the lack of signs, the motel we do find. We spend our last dinar and eat our bellies full once again, this time with trout that's been caught on the spot.

The day before we leave Serbia we arrive in Boljevac. Since we can't find a place to spend the night, we do some shopping and ask the shop-owner for advice. She tells us to go to the local Christian-orthodox church and ask whether we can put up our tent there. After some hesitation and consulting his fellow-priest, the younger priest permits us to put up our tent on the lawn next to the church. The shower we can take in the parsonage. While we're cooking our dinner the priest's daughter brings us some tomatoes and cake.
While Peter prepares dinner I accompany the older priest to the police station, were we have to report ourselves as usual. The policemen really don't know what to do and are glad that the priest takes full responsibility for our safety.

In the evening the younger priest invites us for coffee and raki. A big watermelon is cut up and we're having a lively conversation about all aspects of life. The war has had a big impact on this region as well. People are very angry about the way the UN ended the war in 1999: Boljevac was bombed which led to the death of many innocent civilians. The 48 grenades that destroyed a munitions-dump also left their traces in the parsonage in the shape of cracked walls.

With an 'In Memoriam-card' and two Christian-orthodox crosses made of wood we say our goodbyes. We still can't comprehend how all these friendly and hospitable people represented God's evil on earth a few years ago, were the big bad enemy of the world

The only enemy we've seen and talked to is the son of the fillingstation attendant we met yesterday. His T-shirt shows a picture of Mladic and the words "Serbian hero". This provokes Peter to say "Mafia" while he points at the T-shirt. The boy shakes his head; Peter repeats "Mafia" and leaves it at that. We don't agree, but don't kill each other either.