Category: Balkans

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Zagreb, 1997, Operetta at the Presidential Palace

Rich McClear

This is from 1997.  I threw in the picture of the necktie shop in this tranche of photos, just because it seemed to go with the uniforms. May 11, 1997 Zagreb, Croatia Dear Friends, We’re in our eleventh week of wandering Europe after the evacuation.  We had planned to be gone two.   We’ll be in Zagreb another week before traveling to Vienna to get visas and then to Serbia as IREX plans our alternative lives for us. I still enjoy being awakened by church bells at 6:00 AM.  Since it’s summer they seem louder with the windows open. Earlier in … Continue reading Zagreb, 1997, Operetta at the Presidential Palace

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Zagreb, Croatia

Rich McClear

This letter included my first impressions of Zagreb. I took the pictures in this post in 2001 and 2011.  We had been evacuated from Tirana and had been traveling for two months on only the carryon bags we got out with.  We were working TDY jobs for our IREX as needed.  We had just come from Prague. Zagreb, Croatia April 25, 1997 Dear Friends, Sometimes something you learn in the first hours visiting a place can prejudice you against it before you have a chance to really get to appreciate it.  That could have happened to me in Croatia.  According … Continue reading Zagreb, Croatia

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Mali Ston and Ston, Croatia

Rich McClear

May 23, 2004 Mali Ston, Croatia, Dear Friends, Mali Ston is on a cove, not spectacularly beautiful, but restfully pretty.  Mali Ston is not distinctive compared with other historic towns along the coast.  The reason to go to Mali Stone is to eat.  Big busses bring eating tours to Mali Ston.  This weekend a busload of French Tourists came to sample local seafood and wines.  The cove has oysters and mussels and the local wine is from the next valley.  The town makes much of its income from seafood wedding feasts.  I’m allergic to seafood but everyone assured me that … Continue reading Mali Ston and Ston, Croatia

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Croatia

Rich McClear

Some of my Croat friends will take exception with putting Croatia in the Balkans.  Driving to Zagreb from Slovakia I once said to a friend “It is good to be back in the Balkans.”  He scowled and said, Zagreb is not in the Balkans, the Balkans are south of the Sava.  He than thought a minute and said “So Zagreb’s airport is in the Balkans, but Zagreb isn’t.”   Metternich is supposed to have said: “The Balkans begin at the Rennweg.”  More commonly the Viennese aphorism is “The Balkans begin in the third district.”  I will take Metternich’s definition. We have … Continue reading Croatia

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Sarajevo, BiH

Rich McClear

This is from a May 2004 lettet. Suzi was not sure she wanted to go back to Sarajevo.  We had been there before the war and had pleasant memories.  I’ve been back since but Suzi has not.  It didn’t help that two weeks ago a woman we both know who had been in Sarajevo before the war and who recently went back says she cried for three days.  But I had been to Sarajevo several times in 2000.  Things were not so bad.  The war in Bosnia has been over almost nine years. You can tell there has been a … Continue reading Sarajevo, BiH

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Sarajevo at Night

Rich McClear

This is from a Sept. 2000 letter. In the evening I walked through Sarajevo’s old town.  It had not changed much since I was last there in 1972.  The Habsburg section is now a big walking street, and the old town, still has its Turkish style shop houses and covered bazaar.  The streets were lively with thousands of people getting out of their hot houses and into the evening cool that was still in the high eighties. A Serb I was walking with noticed bullet holes in the walls of some of the buildings right down to the ground floor.  … Continue reading Sarajevo at Night

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Tracking an Old Memory, Dobrun, BiH

Rich McClear

This is from a June, 2010 letter: Thirty Eight years ago, (in 1972) Suzi and I fleetingly encountered a narrow gauge steam powered train while driving the back roads of Bosnia.  Last week, near the same place, we saw that train again.  The rail company is just re-opening the narrow gauge line into Bosnia after closing it in the 70s.  This time we chased the train to get a better look, driving onto side roads and catching up with it at a siding where the engine could un-hook its cars, shuffle around to the other side of the train, and … Continue reading Tracking an Old Memory, Dobrun, BiH

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Mostar, Herzegovina

Rich McClear

This is from a May 2004 letter. Mostar is the second largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the “capital” of Herzegovina.  We visited it before the war.  It’s in worse shape now than Sarajevo was four years ago.  Many of the buildings have warning signs proclaiming them a “Dangerous ruin” and advising you not to enter or park your car too close.  Much of the old town around the Stari Most, Old Bridge, from which the town gets its name is still badly damaged.  In Mostar there has been some rebuilding of the main monuments.  The ancient Turkish bridge’s … Continue reading Mostar, Herzegovina

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Visegrad, BiH

Rich McClear

This is from a June 2009 letter: During one of the mid afternoon breaks Suzi and I drove the 20 km to Visegrad, the setting for the novel “Bridge on the Drina” by Ivo Andric for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1961.  The novel helped me understand the historic context of Yugoslavia better than most non-fiction books.  The main character is the bridge itself, built by the Turks about 450 years ago.  The bridge has 11 stone arches.  At the end of the novel, during the First World War, the Austrians blow up two of the arch spans. … Continue reading Visegrad, BiH

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Sargan 8, A railroad climbs a mountain in Serbia

Rich McClear

This is an excerpt from a June 2009 letter:   This week we started our journalism summer school at Mokra Gora, (wet mountain) in the mountains near the Bosnian border.   As part of the program we had arranged an excursion on the narrow gauge railway. This railroad has fascinated me for more than 35 years.  Suzi and I encountered it in 1972 on a drive through Bosnia, the little steam engines pulled trains of logs and passengers along track that sometimes ran beside the rutted road on which we were driving.  There was a lot of construction on that road … Continue reading Sargan 8, A railroad climbs a mountain in Serbia

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Vojvodina, Serbia

Rich McClear

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

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Subotica, Serbia

Rich McClear

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

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Palic, Serbia

Rich McClear

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

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Novi Sad, Serbia

Rich McClear

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

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Novi Pazar, Serbia

Rich McClear

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

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Nis, Serbia

Rich McClear

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

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Serbia, Mokra Gora

Rich McClear

(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