From Rubble to Romance

I remember my first visit to Belgrade as a complete shock. My wife and I arrived overland through Vojvodina - the airport was closed - after having marvelled at the elegant beauty of Prague and Budapest. It was the week before the May 1st holiday, a year after the NATO bombing. Although spring was blooming, everything that met my senses was drab and dismal, including the faces of the people. My wife’s parents lived, and still live, on Kneza Miloša street close to the Canadian embassy, surrounded by bombing rubble. Cars and trucks, when not parked haphazardly on sidewalk spaces, were noisy and spewed smelly clouds of black smog. Among them I noticed a lot of old, rusting Zastavas. Everywhere I looked there was ruin, decay, and neglect. The Sava and Danube Rivers reinforced this horrible impression thanks to the trash that floated upon them.

Like everyone who grew up in Canada, I have never known this kind of social and economic upheaval. It disturbed me, and my whole being reacted negatively. On our next two trips, we booked two-week holidays to hop the islands of Greece and give ourselves the feeling of having been on vacation: anything to spend less time in Belgrade and its environs.

It was on our third visit that everything changed for me. We were travelling with friends towards the south to visit Sopoćani, Djurdjevi Stupovi, and Petrova Crkva. On the road that accompanies the Ibar River down to the Raška region, we passed a small hill nestled amongst taller peaks, the top of which was straddled by the walls of an old fortress. I inquired about it, but our host and driver couldn’t help me.

On the way back up the same road, with the evening arriving early as it does in the valleys in September, I once again caught sight of this intriguing structure. I demanded we stop, and then declared that whoever wished to climb that hill was welcome, but that none could stop me. I raced up a steadily climbing path, conscious that the sun would not give me more than a few minutes to get good snapshots. It was only a hundred metres in elevation from the road. Reaching around the far side, I passed through an entrance and stepped into another age.

Mystical, magical, medieval: everything was green with grasses and grey with old brick and rock, like a scene out of a Tolkien epic. It was deeply tranquil within that bastion forgotten by time. I climbed up inside the wall structure and skirted around the fenced passage along the parapets, marvelling at the views of the Ibar valley and surrounding peaks, and raced to get good photos before sunset. But when I stopped to catch my breath, my mind was suddenly flooded with mystery. Who built this fortress? Why? What threats did it guard against? What happened here? And then a reverie of enchanting images took hold of me, a sense of the layers of history that we step on almost everywhere we walk in Serbia. And that was it: I was smitten.

By the time of our next trip I was studying regional histories. The fortress was called Maglić, “The Foggy One”, and with it came such legends as Stefan, Uroš, Danilo, and Jelečanin. I began to read about many other historical landmarks in the land of the Serbs, but I didn’t stop there. Serbia’s richness is revealed in the cuisine, the rakije, the old town songs, the arts, the folklore... and as I discovered all of this, I began to notice my negative feelings about this place dissolving, transforming. It was becoming a source of joy and wonder, a place where my inner self comes alive and my senses and curiosity awaken. Going from region to region like Rebecca West, I planned and plotted travels of discovery throughout the country that continue to this day.

Like most of you, our principal reason for visiting is to see precious friends and family. However, it became our habit to organise a trip to any corner, always different from the last, read up on the region’s history and then tour it. This is how we’ve made memories out of Serbia’s cultural and historical wealth. We find treasure everywhere we look: the palaces of Rome’s greatest emperors, riverside trout restos, stalactite caves, Guča, medieval monasteries, EXIT, Turkish baths, Belgrade nightlife, ancient fortresses, Novi Sad, Byzantine frescoes, peaks with stunning vistas, the inspiring art scene, Lepenski Vir, salaš and selo tourism, Knez Mihailova street, red-clay tennis courts, and plenty of mountain springs. There is no end to this magic, and I am grateful to my Serbian wife for opening the door. Serbia has captivated my heart and mind in a way I could not have foreseen, given my first impressions.

And now I am a Canadian guy who craves kajmak! Hajde bre!