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Travel: In Memory of Yugoslavia

Born January 31, 1946; Died April 27, 1992

From the very beginning Communist Yugoslavia was doomed to die young. Like the first Yugoslavia, which survived only 12 years, the infant state inherited a host of genetic flaws that were destined to tear it apart only 46 years after it was born. But for a few years, during the life of Josip Broz, better known as Tito, the factional, ethnic, and religious divisions that would ultimately destroy it were suppressed and the second Yugoslavia seemed destined to succeed.

When we visited the country in 1981, the year after Tito's death, Belgrade, with its broad streets, green parks and crowds of well-dressed, busy people seemed as prosperous and optimistic as any other European city. But the malaise continued to fester beneath the surface and a few years after Tito's death the old animosities resurfaced and the country began to unravel. The complex web of grievances and ambitions that fuelled the break up of Yugoslavia defies rational analysis. Suffice to say that its citizens were drawn into some of the bloodiest, most brutal, conflicts in the annals of civil war. And in the end the country of Yugoslavia was replaced by five independent states that are still struggling to reconcile their differences.

We flew into Belgrade from Athens and were met at the airport by my Canadian friend and colleague Tonia who had invited us to join her on a tour of her homeland. From the airport she took us to her Mother's apartment in the old part of town. The modest flat has a small balcony that looks out on a quiet tree-lined street, reminiscent of Vancouver's West End as it was 20 years before. Tonia's Mom, who speaks very little English, treated us like visiting royalty, showing us first to our room and then to dinner. The roasted suckling pig, complete with apple and surrounded by veggies and salad, had been ordered in our honour, and there was plenty of sljivovica, a potent plum brandy that burns all the way down and takes your mind off the calories and cholesterol.

During the four days we spent in Belgrade, Tonia took great pride in showing us around her city. From the ancient Kalemegdan Citadel at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, to its modern buildings and eight-lane downtown streets, Belgrade in 1981 was a vibrant and prosperous city. The Citadel, razed and rebuilt at least 40 times since the first fortifications were built by the Celts, was then a tranquil park and thriving tourist attraction. The older buildings, those that had survived the ravages of WW2, still bore the scars of war - masonry walls lashed by shrapnel and neat rows of pits left by machinegun fire - but these were things of the past which had begun to fade just as the war itself had begun to fade from the memory of the people.

We spent an evening in the old entertainment district, bought a beer and settled down at one of the sidewalk cafes. This is where people come to hang out, talk with their friends and listen to street musicians - a noisy happy urban scene where no one back then could even imagine that in less than 20 years their city would again be ripped apart by bombs. But in 1999 Yugoslavia was back at war and on the 24 th of March NATO launched a seventy-eight day campaign of air strikes that included Belgrade in its list of targets.

We said good-by to our gracious hostess in Belgrade and the three of us - Betty, Tonia and I - piled into my rented Toyota and headed south for the Dalmatian coast. The route leads through a serenely beautiful pastoral landscape of rolling hills and farmland - fields of golden sunflowers, beehive-shaped haystacks, and clusters of tiny tile-roofed houses, the homes of peasant farmers. A roadside restaurant featuring lamb roasted on a spit turned by a small waterwheel was too good to pass up - a diversion that delayed our arrival in Sarajevo until late afternoon.

Like every other visitor to Sarajevo we made a point of visiting the Princip Bridge where, on June 28, 1914, a 19-year-old Serbian student fired the first shot of WW1. It struck and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Austro-Hungarian heir. Austria declared war on Serbia and Sarajevo acquired the dubious distinction of being the place where "The Great War" began. This is unfortunate for if any city in Europe deserves to be recognized as a symbol of peace it is Sarajevo.

Located in a deep valley and surrounded by mountains, the city has been a crossroads between east and west since ancient times. Before WW1, unlike many European cities, Sarajevo welcomed ethnic and religious diversity. Catholic and Orthodox Christians lived and worked in harmony with Jews and Muslims and its economy prospered by adopting the best of many different cultures. After WW2, Sarajevo flourished, becoming the artistic, cultural and spiritual heart of the country.

During our stroll through the city we passed a Roman Catholic cathedral, a Serbian Orthodox church, and heard the call to prayer from a slender minaret in the Muslim quarter. The local bazaar was teeming with buyers and sellers, and tourists like us, who were simply taking in the scene. Caught up in preparations for the Olympic Games, the city in 1981 was humming with excitement and anticipation.

By 1984, when it hosted the winter Olympics, it was one of the fastest growing cities in Europe, recognized internationally for its cultural diversity. The Games, at that time the largest in Olympic history, were a resounding success. But eight years later Sarajevo was again ravaged by war, its citizens held hostage during the longest siege in the history of European warfare. For 1,400 days during the Bosnian war from 1992 to 1995 the city lay under siege without water or electricity while Serbian forces in the surrounding hills terrorized its citizens with the constant threat of mortar and small arms fire. More than

11,000 people were killed, yet the city rebuilt and, to this day it continues to celebrate its cultural diversity.

We left Sarajevo in the early morning and headed south for Dubrovnik. There are no speed limits and my little Toyota was no match for the Mercedes whisking German tourists to the pleasure spots of the Coast. Flashing headlights was a signal to get out of the way because the overtaking driver had no intention of slowing down. It was a white-knuckle drive all the way and I heaved a sigh of relief when we finally pulled into the safety of our Dubrovnik B&B where Lena, our hostess for the next four days, produced a cold beer and a comfortable chair on her large stone balcony high above the town.

That evening we followed a series of stone stairways down to the Pile Gate and found a tiny cafe just inside the city wall. The rocky islet on which the old town is built became a safe refuge from barbarians back in the 7 th century and over the years its occupants built a defensive wall against attack from either sea or land. By the end of the 12 th century Dubrovnik had become an important trading centre and, despite its present dependence on tourism, the old town is still a living community that retains both the best and worst of its medieval heritage. Exploring its labyrinthine streets is like entering a time warp into the past.

The four days we spent in Dubrovnik were barely enough to capture the mood of the place. Each walk around the perimeter wall revealed some new nook to explore, another magnificent piece of sculpture, or some new glimpse of life in a walled city - dark passageways lead to mysterious bolted doors, three story houses face one another across streets so narrow that their tiled roofs nearly touch, a goat browses on a third floor balcony. We pause to let a woman dump her wash water into the ditch. It joins the waste from other homes and flows out into the ocean through a hole in the wall, just as it was designed to do centuries ago.

Before leaving Dubrovnik we took the cable car up Srdj Hill for a commanding sunset view of the Dalmatian Coast and across the old city to the islands of the Adriatic. Now, almost thirty years later, that evening embodies for me the paradox of Yugoslavia - the disconnect between the serene tranquillity of that evening in 1981 and the terror of what happened next. The cable car was totally destroyed during the "homeland war" of 1991-92 and has still not been replaced. Work to repair the damage caused by more than 2,000 artillery shells is ongoing but the original roof tiles cannot be matched nor can the shattered works of art ever be replaced. And nothing can ever compensate for the human misery and death that accompanied the war.

Tourism is again flourishing even as Dubrovnik rebuilds itself and Croatia, now an independent country, is at peace with its neighbours. Hopefully, this time, the people who were once Yugoslavs have found a lasting way to live in harmony with one another and end the cycle of recurring wars that has plagued the Balkans throughout history.