After a year learning Serbian I can present my very first poem written in Serbian language (with a little help of a friend for the language corrections), here it is:
Od Dunava do Južne Morave,
od Midžore do Zlatibore
je Srbija, zemlija koju volim.
Moje srce je negde
i ne znam zašto ali znam
srce ima svoj put.
Uz Ibarske klisure ili u vrh Midžora
znaš da te tvojij drugovi i drugarice
čekaju kod kuče sa drugarstvom.
‘s-Hertogenbosch (NL), 2 februar 2012
Funny to share, I have found it on the net, maybe a bit outdated, but still funny 
Top Ten Reasons for being a Serb:
1. You are not a Croat.
2. Basketball team.
3. You can choose between several war criminals in Presidential elections.
4. You can enjoy the positive media coverage of your country when abroad.
5. You can fight 600 year-old battles against the Turks and their domestic collaborators, be convinced that it’s happening right now, and not be entirely wrong.
6. You can always go to Greece and Cyprus and fear nothing.
7. Grilled meat and slivovitz.
8. You get to drink slivovitz and eat grilled meat even when under economic sanctions.
9. You are the only European country which was bombed by NATO.
10.Every now and then you get to fly to the Hague at someone else’s expense.
Top ten reasons for being a Croat:
1. You’re not a Serb
2. Soccer team.
3. You get to pretend that your language is different from Serbian, although it’s really not.
4. Dubrovnik.
5. You get to dream about independent Croatia.
6. Every now and then you get to sing “Danke, Danke,Deutschland,” and continue to dream about independent Croatia.
7. You have a thousand-year culture of which no one has heard.
8. You have a democratically elected President who is not ashamed of being a Croat.
9. The glorious World War Two past.
10.You have a thousand-year culture….
Top ten reasons for being Bosnian:
1. You can get asylum anywhere except in Serbia.
2. You can pretend that your state exists.
3. Kebab.
4. You can pretend that Sarajevo is a really cosmopolitan European city when you know that it is not.
5. Great kebab.
6. You can be visited by Francois Mitterand, Bernard Henry-Levy,Susan Sontag, and Bill Clinton and it still doesn’t make a difference.
7. Free round-trip to any Moslem country.
8. You get to be bombed by a psychiatrist.
9. You can fly your flag in the UN but nowhere else.
10.Foreigners give you money and don’t ask any questions.
Top ten reasons for being Slovenian:
1. You can speak the beautiful Slovene language and know that no one cares except you.
2. You can feel superior to all former Yugoslavs.
3. You can drink after work.
4. You can pretend to live on the “sunny side of the Alps,” although you know it’s not that sunny.
5. You can pretend that you are as good as any German while secretly enjoying the fact that you are a Slav.
6. Good relations with Italy and Austria.
7. You can afford to be Yugo-nostalgic.
8. You can marry a Slovene and have Slovene children who speak Slovene.
9. You don’t have to be ashamed when abroad.
10.No one bothers you because no one really cares.
Top ten reasons for being Macedonian:
1. You can call yourself Macedonian and not get killed by a Bulgarian, Greek, Serb or Albanian.
2. Fresh tomatoes, watermelon and tobacco.
3. You can pretend you are a descendant of Alexander the Great and piss off the Greeks.
4. You get to be sad and suffer while listening to folk music.
5. Good relations with your neighbors, especially Greeks and Albanians.
6. American soldiers on your territory.
7. You get to call your country The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
8. Fresh tomatoes, watermelon, and tobacco.
9. You can successfully pretend your language is not Bulgarian.
10.Everyone is interested in the stability of your country except your neighbors.
Top ten reasons for being Montenegrin:
1. You can be proud of your heroic past and not being conquered by the Turks for 500 years.
2. You can sing epic songs about your heroic past and not being conquered by the Turks for 500 years.
3. You can think of Russia as your Mother, although Russia does not know you are her son.
4. You can combine orthodoxy with Stalinism with love of Russia and still think that you are better and more progressive than the Serbs.
5. Goat cheese, grilled lamb, and grappa.
6. You get to kill at least one person in a vendetta and defend your honor.
7. If you are a woman you can kill your husband and everyone knows why you did it.
8. You can smuggle cigarettes to Italy and live like a king.
9. You don’t have to work even when you have to.
10.You don’t have to work….
Top ten reasons for being Albanian:
1. You can always swim to Italy.
2. You can choose between a president who stole your whole income, one who killed all your relatives, or go fight the Serbs in Kosovo.
3. You can be proud of being from “the land of the eagle.”
4. You can always swim to Italy.
5. You can take weapons from any army garrison and defend your honor.
6. You can get killed in a vendetta and be remembered as the hero of the family.
7. You get to be called the poorest country in Europe.
8. You can live in the ecologically cleanest country in Europe.
9. You can always swim to Italy
10.You are proud of being “from the land of the eagle.”
Top ten reasons for being a Yugoslav:
1. You can be proud that you are neither a Serb, nor a Croat, nor a Slovene, nor a Bosnian, nor a Macedonian, nor Montenegrin, nor an Albanian, although you are one or more of the above.
2. You don’t have to feel bad about being “Yugo-nostalgic”.
3. You can have a husband/wife from any part of Yugoslavia and still feel like the country never fell apart, especially if you are abroad.
4. You get to listen to Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, and even Albanian music and feel that it’s quite OK.
5. You don’t have to be ashamed of your Titoist past.
6. You can sing Partisan songs from World War Two or rock-and-roll from the 1980′s.
7. You get to be cosmopolitan and spit on all the nationalists.
8. You get to be researched by foreign sociologists interested in your identity.
9. You are invited to speak about Yugoslavia at conferences abroad.
10.You are a good candidate for a Soros stipend.
As you have maybe noticed I celebrated New Year (Nova Godina) in Beograd (Belgrade), the capital of Serbia. I spent a great time as always and I am missing it already too much. Beograd is a great city with great people!
I want to share some panorama pictures with you here, hope you like them ! You can click on then to enlarge.
31.12.2011: Beograd, the fortress of Kalemegdan: where Sava (left) ends inDanube (right).
01.01.2012: Belgrade,view from Kalemegdan fortress: the first sunset of the New Year, with a view towards Novi Beograd and the new Ada bridge opened 01.01.2012.
01.01.2012: Belgrade,view from Kalemegdan fortress: the first sunset of the New Year, with a view towards Novi Beograd and the new Ada bridge opened 01.01.2012.
Copyrighted: Fabian Vendrig
For more info you can contact me!
Dear readers,
I started 2011 close to my birthplace, IJsselstein in the Netherlands, and I will finish this year in Serbia, travelled more than 18000 kilometers, dreams came true and dream collapsed, as it is like every year, but this year more dreams came true then collapsed actually.
When I was standing this year on the 2725 meters high Mali Triglav in Slovenia and former Yugoslavia was lying at my feet I still cannot describe the feelings I had at that moment. It was a moment of conquer, but also a moment of defeat, for I did not reaching top of Triglav.
Less than a week later I stood on a hill above Dubrovnik in Croatia and saw how the Adriatic Sea got a gold color, because of the sunset, and at that moment there was nothing any more I could wish in my life.
A week later, after having travelled all the way from Slovenia, I reached, together with friends, the top of the 2721 meters high Nidže/Kajmakčalan on the Macedonian-Greek border-. And together we honored the victims of the battle of the First World War, fallen 95 years before, on this mountain top.
In a week I will be in Serbia for the 3th time this year and I will end this year on “Trg Republike” in Belgrade to welcome 2012 with my friends over-there. But I will, of course, think about you: my family, my friends and acquaintances for everything you have done for me.
This friendship and peace is nowadays not a certainty anymore, so we as citizens of this world should continuously keep working on our friendship, understanding, peace and stability. I will continue next year to do all my efforts to work on this.
I wish you a Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year!
Yours faithfully,
Fabian Vendrig
Nova Godina
Mnogo sreće I bezbroj snova
nek vam donese Godina Nova,
a sve ono što mržnju stvara
nek odnese godina stara!
My Christmas &New Year card , click to enlarge.
Below: on Mali Triglav, Slovenia,3th September 2011, alt 2725 meters
Below: Dubrovnik,Croatia, 8th September 2011
Below: Nidže/Kajmakčalan,Macedonian-Greek border, 18th September 2011
This evening I attended in Utrecht an interesting lecture of SIB-Utrecht and IKV Pax Christi with the title “(P)raising Serbia”. A Serbian journalist, an Serbian former activist and a Dutch member of the European Parliament were invited.: it was an interesting evening, but my personal opinion did not change after the lecture, it was just a confirmation of what I thought already: Serbia deserves to become candidate member of the EU next Friday. Serbia has his own (rich!) culture, just like all the other current EU-member states which we should respect on all sides (EU in between and Serbia). Serbia is facing currently, as a lot of other countries, a lot of difficulties: economical, social, juridical and of course,for Serbia the Kosovo question. These are all problems the EU are facing, we do not want to know about Kosovo in the EU, but it is an European problem, because Serbia and Kosovo are part of Europe….
Quote: “There are as much good things in Serbia as in the EU,as there are bad things about Serbia, as about the EU”. Reforms can be dictated by the government (as it was usual in Serbia), but it should also be supported by the people…In Serbia, but also the EU.
Twelve years ago such an approach was unbelievable, when NATO bombed Serbia&Montenegro and we have to see the developments also in this perspective….It needs time, just look how long it took France and Germany to become peaceful to each other. What I see and hear about Serbia is a signal and it is a good signal: we should not focus on the bad things, but at the good things achieved yet !
Europe can be approached as a “technical” thing, which can be good as it can only provoke “national sentiments” when we approach it only as a political thing. Europe is a continent, which share common values, which has a common ideas and one of them is that we do not want to fight any more, but that we want to live in peace and stability: in the EU, but as well in Serbia and the whole Western Balkans….
So let the door be open, for me personally, Serbia and the Western-Balkans are more then welcome!
Europe, the continent where I was born, raised and still live. My dear Europe seems to be in a huge crises. Is it about money, solidarity or just ignorance? What is actually Europe? Is it a political thing, do we have common values or are they just created? Is Europe the European Union , or is Europe bigger ?
We live nowadays 66 years after the end of the Second World War and 93 years after the First World War. Since 66 years we live in peace and stability, unfortunately not for my beloved Balkans, but for this blog I will leave that apart, you can find much more about that here.
I have been “outside” the European Union, I have been on the edges of it ‘s borders, on high mountains overlooking countries which were “in” the European Union and which were not. I have stepped over borders and made new friends which were once “behind” the Iron Curtain, dividing our dear continent between “West”and “East”. I understand that the European Union is in a crises, but it seems like we have forgotten what it is all about!
I will give you a short reminder in pictures (you can click on them to enlarge):
21.05.2009, Sarajevo (BIH): Plaque in remembrance of the start of the First World War.
18.09.2011, Nidže/Kajmakčalan, Macedonian-Greek border: chapel in remembrance of the battle during 12th and 30th September 1916 between the Serbian and Bulgarian army.
Verdun (F), 05.04.2009: Plaque in remembrance of the western front: the French and German head of state who decided to become friends on the ancient battlefield of Verdun (First World War).
Jesenice (SLO), 04.09.2011: Plaque in remembrance of fallen railway workers during the Second World War.
Gorizia (I), Nova Goricia (SLO), 31.08.2011: Plaque in remembrance of the establishment of the border between Yugoslavia and Italia (1947) and the accession of Slovenia into the European Union (2004).
Novi Sad (SRB), 29.04.2011: Plaque in remembrance of a victim of the NATO bombardments on Serbia.
I think, we in Europe do not want to have new plaques as such above, those who gave their lives do also not deserve that, so we should unite more….
See my post below (of 17.09.2011) , but now I have a new panorama picture from almost the same spot, but then in the early morning (07h02!). I took this picture on the third of September 2011 near Vodnikov Dom on an altitude of 1817 meters above sea level. You an click on the picture to enlarge!
Weekend have started, so: dobro vikend! (=have a nice weekend). And as a gift for you to start the weekend with I offer you this panorama picture, taken in the evening of the second September near Vodnikov Dom on an altitude of 1817 meters above sea level. You an click on the picture to enlarge!
The pictures of my last part of the trip are now also online, you can find them by clicking here. It includes pictures of Florina (which is in Greece, but in Macedonian it is called Lerin) and the climb to the top 2521 meters high Nidže/Kajmakčalan which is in Macedonia , close to the Macedonian-Greek border. A real big thanks to all my friends who made it happen: from Triglav to Nidže…
I travelled from the Triglav to the Vardar (the reversed way of the old Yugoslav song od Vardara do pa Triglava) and when I actually entered Macedonia (via the border crossing with Serbia) I could hardly resist my tears: I was back in Makedonija (=Macedonia).
Makedonija and it’s citizens have always a special place in my heart and I again listened to my heart when I entered Macedonia. It felt like the “Makedonski sunce” (=Macedonian sun) was waiting for me and I was welcomed again by it.
I always ask myself this question when I pass this border crossing, which I passed many times: which country do I like more, Serbia or Macedonia? Until now I was never be able to answer that question, but more important, do I have to answer that question? I think I do not have to answer that question, because it does not matter: I love the whole Balkans and yes, Macedonia has a special place in my heart, as Serbia does as well.
So, I was back in Macedonia, “moja Makedonija”, although I have nothing I own there, but that does not count. I saw the Vardar river, after travelling around 2000km from the Triglav mountain, and there was nothing more I needed, ok except for a delicious “Skopsko” (beer from Skopje) : my heart told me that I was happy. I made it all the way from Triglav, thanks to the great help of my friends through whole ex-Yugoslavia (from Triglav to the Vardar and even behind) and now I was enjoying Macedonia.
I met my Macedonian friends again, I have seen again the magical Ohrid lake area , visited the beautiful monastery of Sveti Naum and climbed Macedonia’s 5th highest mountain Nidže…. What else do I need? Nothing….
Yes, I know what I need: I need to return to “moja Makedonija”…..
Pictures online now, just click here.