A Misconceived Balkans
Originally written in 2015
I was cavorting back and forth with fellow backpackers and Nicaraguense locals in Ometepe, when I got the Whatsapp from my friend Trent about possibly visiting him in Kosovo. The most recently recognized country in the world as it seceded from the sovereign nation of Serbia. Y'all know my life is random, this is just an example of how it gets there.
Being friends with (primarily) athletes has always caused an interesting dynamic within the friendship. In this particular case, I happened to have one homie that was playing overseas basketball in Kosovo. He was based in Prizren, cold, depressing, his teammates speaking very little English, and missing home. Out of all his friends, there’s a high likelihood that I was the only one without a big-girl, salaried position that prevented me from taking a random trip to the Balkans. Naturally, he insisted that I visit and that he’d put in for the flight. Shooooo!
Just to reverse a few notches, I studied international development and conflict management at Maryland. Throughout my tenure there, my most studied region of the world was the Balkans due to my general fascination of the diasporas of culture, peoples and religion (Christian, Orthodox, Coptic, Muslim). The Balkan War was where I spent the majority of my intellectual time when ensconced in heavy academic study and in my opinion, naturally, I adopted a minute obsession with the region (think Carrie from Homeland and her obsession with Brody from just secretly watching him 24/7 on a camera). Overall, most people are unaware of the Balkans, the wars, the genocides, or even that a significant majority of Balkan peoples live in Jersey and NY. So when I was posed with the invitation, although it sounded absolutely crazy at the time, I remembered all the countries that were on my dream board in my New Jersey bedroom: Kosovo, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia & Herzegovina.
I texted my mom about this monkey wrench, and if you know my mom, you know she’s joining without hesitation :)
Quick recap
February 2015 to March 30, 2015 I finished up my Central American journey with stints in Costa Rica and Panama (where my brother came to visit, love you Lawr). I flew home, stayed put for one day and boarded a flight to Istanbul with my mom, waving ‘see ya later’ to my Dad through the dutty plane windows. In typical Viki sitcom life, Trent was traded to another team in another country in another hemisphere while I was in the plane flying to him…so, Mom and me were on our own for a month in a place where our preconceived notions were proven to be so wholly inaccurate that we thought we were actually in a twilight zone. Wut?
Hours after landing in Istanbul, as there are zero direct flights to Kosovo from USA, there was a nationwide power outage that had the definite scent of terrorism wafting from it. Naturally, my retired-police-Captain-father had been trying in vain to contact us for hours to ensure our existence, unfortunately for him, we just kept on keepin on, smiling and dandy without a care in the world for wifi. Oops.
Since we envisioned being in Pristina for the entire month of April living in Trent’s apartment, we were truly unprepared for the trip we ended up being on. JUST the way I like it…just the way mom doesn’t.
We expected:
- war-torn,
- bullet-holed,
- no-English-speaking-whatsoever,
- dilapidated homes,
- no middle class,
- definitely no luxury vehicles…just, third world 101.
We. Were. So. Wrong.
Kosovo, the recently independent and autonomous region within Serbia, was our first stop. Home to much ethnic turmoil, we were flummoxed to see that damn near everyone spoke English! Yes, we are in a globalizing world, however many consider Eastern Europe to be significantly behind the westernization of our globe. Pristina (el capital), at least, is modernizing at a pretty rapid rate and it was clear from so many Kosovars being able to afford lunch-on-the-town, women going to work in cosmopolitan business casual with heels and name brand bags, and most interestingly (to us) of all was the fact that almost no one did a double take at our biracial pairing (rare).
Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, and Bosnia & Herzegovina (B&H) were all similar to Kosovo for us. English speaking, less double-taking, and the like. However, there were more signs of war in Albania and Macedonia by way of Cold War bunkers and museums dedicated to war heroes (Kruje, AL). Tourism is at a starting point particularly in Macedonia and Albania, but Montenegro and Croatia have made definite touristic headway with their lovely locations along the Adriatic Sea. With celebrities like Madonna frequenting and owning land in Montenegro, it’s only a matter of time before more Westerners follow suite. Montenegro and Croatia are staunchly on the cruise ship circuit and create a bit of a nightmare in terms of mass tourism in my honest opinion (similar to Istanbul, but that’s neither here nor there). We had a bit more of the double taking in Macedonia and Albania, but I believe it was more from the shock that there were American tourists as opposed to the biracial aspect. Kotor, Montenegro is in my top five places on the planet that I’ve been. GO THERE!
Beograd, Serbja is absolutely one of my favorite cities. Steeped in serious history, abundant culture, and its European location as a major melding of East-Meets-West, it’s a truly wondrous and often unconsidered place. Zero signs in Belgrade or Novi Sad (a beauteous countryside town also on the Danube River) of previous war or turmoil, yet all the signs of a contemporary European cityscape. We spent five days based in a Belgrade apartment and not only felt completely at home in our little neighbourhood, but also didn’t have enough time to see everything we wanted to see. Must return!
Montenegro and Serbia were BY FAR my favorite countries on this leg of the trip and it’s a definite that I’ll be returning to their grandeur at some distant point in this life. Honeymoon, perhaps?
*PS. No surprise that my boyfriend is from Montenegro! We met right before the pandemic in NY — he was surprised and impressed that I’d not only studied his region and history but had actually traveled there!
