This is an excerpt from a November 2008 letter. The Pannonian Plain is Fargo flat.   It’s the bed of an ancient “sea” where rich soil settled into a flat bottom.  The part of the plain in Serbia is the Autonomous province of Vojvodina with its capital in Novi Sad.  The region was largely marshy swamp through which armies moved back and forth until the ground settled.  When the ground settled people settled too.  Serbian refugees, many from Kosovo, came north fleeing the Ottomans.  Hungarians moved south, Croats East and Romanians west, all into the Vojvodina.  Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa settled … Continue reading Vojvodina, Serbia

This is an excerpt from an April 20010 letter. On Easter Suzi and I decided to travel to Subotica, which is in the very northernmost part of Serbia.  It is a majority Catholic city, so we thought it might be a good place to celebrate Western Easter.  By the time we got there any Easter festivities were long over, but we got to wander the streets to look at this Art Nouveau-Secessionist town.  Although it is in Serbia, it is not of Serbia, but is tied, by history and tradition, to the Hapsburgs.  It’s where Serbs who cannot get a … Continue reading Subotica, Serbia

This is an excerpt from a November 2008 letter, though some of the pictures were taken later. This weekend I spent time with some of the journalists from the region at Palic Lake.  The lake is set in the very flat landscape of the Pannonian Plain and on a windy day it may have more terrain than the surrounding countryside.  When I was there the lake was flat calm with mist rising, shrouding the piers and the 19th century empire hotels and villas.  Palic is a piece of the Habsburg Empire that found itself just a few kilometers on the … Continue reading Palic, Serbia

These are excerpts from an April 2009 letter.   Spring has arrived and I have spent as much time as possible overcoming vitamin D deficiency drinking espresso on sunny sidewalks and walking through Belgrade’s and Novi Sad’s parks. On Saturday Suzi and I drove to Novi Sad, Serbia’s second city, a Hapsburg town on the Danube a little over 100 kilometers north of Belgrade.   We visited friends and took a look at the Novi Sad School of Journalism weekend school.  We had a stroll along the Danube and enjoyed the views of the citadel across the river and the colorful … Continue reading Novi Sad, Serbia

Here is an excerpt from a February 11, 2010 family letter. 7 AM:  looking out a hotel window, fog from the river, steam from tile roofs and smoke from chimneys all mingle and rise past the top of a minaret towards the snowcapped mountains carrying smells of baking bread, roasting coffee and wood smoke touched with soft coal.  Two hours earlier the muezzin’s call to prayer would have mingled with these mists but I wasn’t looking out the window just then.  The call to prayer nudged me awake long enough for me to check the time, think my own devotions … Continue reading Novi Pazar, Serbia

Here are some paragraphs from a 2009 family letter. Last weekend we traveled to the southern city of Nis.We had a little time for sightseeing around work.  We were in Nis to help demonstrate remote broadcast at the Nis Film Festival.  The festival was in the old Turkish citadel so the main tourist attraction was all around us.  We had a pizza in the garden of the Turkish bath.  We drove out of town to visit the Skull Tower and the Nis Hot Springs. The tower is about 10 feet high and is lined with the skulls of Serb rebel … Continue reading Nis, Serbia

(This is an excerpt from a letter from March 2009) Last week I visited a resort, Mecavnik, in the Tara Mountains near the Bosnian border just outside the town of Mokra Gora.  It was built by Emir Kusturica, the Serbian filmmaker (“Arizona Dream”, “Underground”).  We are planning to have the IREX Journalism Summer School there in June and July.  Mecavnik is an “ethno village” designed to look like a traditional Serbian village and was built, I think, first as a film set.  It is the site of the annual Kustendorf Film Festival and has a modern cinema, indoor pool, gym, … Continue reading Serbia, Mokra Gora

These are pictures from Belgrade in 2000.  We moved back as soon as we could get a visa, just days after Milosevic lost power. Continue reading Belgrade, 2000

This is from an April 2009 letter:   When I picked up my teacup a few mornings ago, the one with Tito, I noticed that my fingers were black.  I don’t know if Tito is rubbing off on me.  But the cup is a bit less stark than it once was. On Saturday I went to an exhibit “The Tito Effect” at the museum near his tomb.  It explores the charisma that held Yugoslavia together after the Second World War.  At the entrance a youth choir was singing.  The group was backed up by a bass, guitar, and drum.  They … Continue reading Belgrade, Tito’s Grave, Yugo Nostalgia.

There is always activity on Belgrade’s streets, good food and a festival of free entertainment. Continue reading Belgrade Street Life

Belgrade is a night city.  It is party center in Europe, but it also has stately buildings and grand evening walks. Continue reading Belgrade Nights

These paragraphs are from a 2012 letter.  We returned to the Moskva Hotel, where we had stayed so many nights in the 1990s.  When we came back we stayed where we started, at the Moskva.  The deskman knew us after a decade of absence from the hotel.  The Moskva is one of my top three emotional picks for hotels in the world.  We spent hundreds of nights here in the 1990s and early 2000s, sometimes staying for a month at a time.  I watched the massive demonstrations against Milosevic from the Moskva’s windows. In 1997 Ljiljana chose the Moskva for … Continue reading Belgrade, Hotel Moskva

Kalemegdan is where the Danube and Sava Rivers meet.  It is a fortified site that has been held by the Celts, Romans, Byzantines, Serbs, Turks, Austrians, Germans, Yugoslavs and the Serbs again.  It is a park, fort, and the place where Belgrade spends weekend afternoons.  The pictures are from Kalemegdan and other places mentioned in the letter.  These are excerpts from an March 2009 letter.   On Sunday in Belgrade the parks came alive.  Today Belgrade’s walking street was full of strollers eating ice cream and popcorn, stopping for an iced coffee at one of the cafes and strolling on … Continue reading Belgrade, Kalemegdan: Where the Danube and Sava Rivers Meet.

Some winter pictures of Belgrade.  Belgrade has very good snow removal allowing you to walk without slipping very soon after a snowfall. Continue reading Beograd, The White City (Belgrade in the winter.)