Belgrade

I went to Belgrade last weekend to visit Ellen Kelly, who has lived there while working for USAID for the last 7+ years.  The trip by bus from Zagreb takes 5+ hours on a dye straight road through incredibly flat country.  The trip includes a couple of rest stops and about 20 minutes to get through the border crossing.  

I don't know what I expected to find Belgrade (some sinister place that wreaked of evil where the people have horns) but it wasn't what I found.  It is a city with wide boulevards, some impressive architecture, and all the name brand shops you'll find in any western capital.  There is a vibrant street scene with a large pedestrian shopping area jammed with the cafes that seem to be ubiquitous in this part of the world.  Spurred on by the gorgeous weather, people were out in droves.

As we headed toward lunch on Saturday, we found ourselves in the middle of a large demonstration honoring the anniversary of the assassination of the reformist, pro-western prime minister, Zoran Dindic (pronounced Zindzich), in front of the building where it took place.

Right across the street were the remnants of the defense ministry building bombed during the "1999 NATO Aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia."  This was how it was described in the Serbian war museum which we visited after lunch.

Lunch was in pleasant outdoor cafe.  Lunch and all the food I had in Belgrade was terrific, one of the pleasant surprises.  If you ever get there you must eat at the Iguana, a restaurant on the docks that line the Sava River.  It is owned by Ellen's friend and it is a real find.  After lunch, we wandered through the large park surrounding the Belgrade fort in which the war museum is located.  It is a spectacular setting overlooking the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers.

One cannot spend any time in this region without trying to eff the ineffable -- why did the war happen?  Volumes have been written about it.  But on the bus going home, I read something that struck a cord. Rick Steves relates this "old joke" -- "Yugoslavia had eight distinct peoples in six republics, with five languages, three religions and two alphabets, but only one Yugslav -- Tito."