Day five in the Balkans
May 15th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Day five was wholly in North Macedonia but involved a lot of travel on some really poor roads.
We left Ohrid in the south-east of the country and travelled north-west to the middle of the nation. Here we visited the Stobi archaeological site which was a reminder of the long and rich history of this part of the world. Stobi was a key location at the time of the Roman occupation of Macedonia when Augustus was emperor. For centuries the area sank into oblivion before it was revealed by the French historian Leon Heuzey in 1861. It is still being excavated.
It was very hot (28C) as we wandered round the site, so we were pleased that, soon after this visit, we stopped for lunch at the Popova Kula Winery at Demir Kapija. In an effort to sell the local wines, we were served with samples of white, rose and red during the meal. I for one fell asleep on the next stage of our road journey which was to the capital of North Macedonia which is Skopje.
After no more than three-quarters of an hour, we were off again on a walking tour of the city led by our guide in North Macedonia Anela. The city centre is full of new buildings, mainly government departments and museums. There are two reasons for this transformation.
First, in 1963, Skopje was devastated by a major earthquake which I remember at the time (I was 15). Second and more significantly, since independence in 1991, they have been creating all the institutions of a nation state together with lots of statues honouring a mythic past.
So, for example, in the main Macedonia Square there is a grand equestrian statue of Alexander the Great. The area of the old Turkish bazaar retains some of the earlier atmosphere of the city.
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Day four in the Balkans
May 14th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Day four and time to move on to the third country of our tour: North Macedonia. It was 8.45 am when we left our hotel in Tirana and headed east. After a refreshment stop, we crossed the border at Qafe Thane and proceeded into North Macedonia.
Now most people know Macedonia as the birthplace of Alexander the Great but today three countries lay claim to the name Macedonia: Greece, Bulgaria and what is now called North Macedonia. Like other parts of former Yugoslavia, North Macedonia is ethnically diverse with most of its citizens being Orthodox Christians but almost a third being Muslim.
At 1.20 pm, we rolled up to the Sky Corner hotel in the town of Ohrid in the south-east of the country. The town is known for once having 365 churches, one for each day of the year, and has been referred to as a “Jerusalem of the Balkans”. The town of Ohrid and Lake Ohrid are respectively UNESCO Cultural and Natural Sites and Ohrid is one of only 28 sites in the world that are Cultural as well as Natural UNESCO sites.
After barely half an hour to unpack or have a drink, we met our guide for North Macedonia Anela for our afternoon walking tour of the town. She told something interesting: in November/December 2018 – a full year before China announced an outbreak of Covid-19 – all her family (and many others in the town) suffered flu-like symptoms including loss of smell and taste. The town had many Chinese tourists, so could this have been an early case of Covid?
When we started on our walking tour, the temperature was 26C and all seemed fine. But, quite soon, we heard rumblings of thunder which became ever louder. By the time we reached the remains of Tsar Samuel’s Fortress, there were repeated strikes of fork lightning on the nearby horizon.
As we approached the Church of Saints Clement & Panteleimon, it started to crash with rain. Like most of the group, I had left my jacket at the hotel and was just wearing a shirt so I was drenched. No problem: we took shelter in a cafe opposite the church only to find that the lightning had knocked out the electricity.
It was all part of this adventurous holiday.
We could not wait for the rain to stop. There were churches to see. So, after a look inside St Clement, we walked on to the most famous church in Ohrid, the Church of St John at Kaneo. This dates back to the 13th century and is so popular partly because of the beautiful design (lots of red roof tiles) and partly because of the dramatic location (the cliff over Kaneo Beach overlooking Lake Ohrid).
Finally we took a short boat trip from below this church across the lake back to the town where we checked out our third Orthodox church of the afternoon: the 10th century Church of St Sophia with 11th century frescoes.
We had an hour and a half at the hotel before as usual we ate as a group at a local restaurant. Tonight’s speciality was delicious trout and again there was a tasty dessert.
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Day three in the Balkans
May 13th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Day three was in Albania where we had a local guide called Kledi who explained some of the dramatic recent changes in his country. Under the dictatorial rule of Envo Hoxha from 1944-1985, Albania was the most closed and poorest countries In Europe. Following the collapse of communism in 1991, great efforts are being made to accord recognition to the four main religious groups in the country: two Muslim (Sunni and Sufi) and two Christian (Orthodox and Catholic).
The main visit of the day involved a two-hour coach ride from Tirana to Berat in the south of the country. The town is known for its historic architecture and scenery and is known as the “Town of a Thousand Windows“, due to the many large windows of the old decorated houses overlooking the town which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Our first visit was to a location called the Cathedral of Dormition of St. Mary. The Dormition of the Mother of God is a great feast in the Orthodox tradition. It celebrates the “falling asleep” (death) of Mary the Theotokos (“Mother of God”) and her being taken up into heaven (bodily assumption). The iconostasis of this church is simply magnificent. Inside the church is the National Iconographic Museum “Onufri”(named after two generations of famous painters).
The second visit was to the National Ethnographic Museum. This opened in 1979 and contains a diversity of everyday objects from throughout the history of Berat. There are photographic reminders of the town’s famous bazaar of over 800 shops which was razed by the communist regime in 1945.
The weather was glorious and the temperature had now risen to 27C. After a short break for a snack, we were off back to Tirana – another two hours on our small coach. Well, that was the plan.
I had fallen asleep when I was woken up to find that our coach had broken down in a long tunnel and we were being assailed by hooting and screaming. We had to abandon our vehicle, dodge passing vehicles, and take refuge in a service porch. I had visions of us being there for some time, so I pulled out my bag of fruits & nuts and gave each of the group a carefully measured ration. In fact the problem was solved in half an hour, we reboarded our coach which had now been cordoned off by cones by an emergency team, and we resumed our return to Tirana.
In fact, this unfortunate accident meant that, by the time we reached Tirana, the National Museum – next on our tour – was closed. Our local guide came up with an alternative plan: a visit to what was before the collapse of communism the nuclear war bunker for members of the Ministry of the Interior and is now a museum called Bunk’Art explaining the terrible repression of the Hoxha regime. Here we saw exhibits describing 36 forms of torture and listing 5,500 victims of the regime.
Back at the hotel, one of the group Toby Screech gave a talk on his visits to Albania in 1988 and 2002 which highlighted just how totally the country has changed. Finally, six of the group plus our guide Miku went out for dinner at a lively modern restaurant called “Tartuf Shop” before wandering round the main square which was hosting a very noisy rock concert. This was not the Tirana that any of us had expected: colourful and vibrant.
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Day two in the Balkans
May 12th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Starting at 9 am, the second day of our holiday was different from the first. To start with, we had all had a full night’s sleep. Then, except for a brief look at the Kosovan town of Gjakova, we spent the day over in Albania.
Immediately the terrain changed as we drove on rough roads on tightly-winding routes overlooking picturesque gorges featuring tumbling rivers in turn overlooked by “the accursed mountains” (the title of a book by Robert Carver). At various points, we slowed down for wandering cows or sheep or goats to clear the way.
The highlight of the day was a ferry ride along most of the artificial Lake Koman in northern Albania. Although the location is called a lake, it is actually a reservoir based on the River Drin which was constructed between 1979 and 1988. The Lake Koman ferry operates daily on the lake from Fierza to Koman in a fabulous journey that takes about two and a half hours.
The weather was ideal: warm and sunny with a light breeze. The turquoise water and the vertical canyons of craggy rock presented endless breathtaking views that just cried out to be photographed.
It was late afternoon when, back on dry land, we stopped for some refreshment in the town of Shkoder. Interestingly, I visited this town in 2019 on a day trip from Montenegro which is a short distance to the north.
We then headed south for the Albanian capital Tirana and, after some challenges, finally rolled up to our accommodation, Hotel Austria, at 8.10 pm, over 11 hours since we left our previous hotel.
The pace did not slacken. In no time at all, the group walked round to the Oda restaurant for another set-course dinner. This time it was pashaqofte soup, fresh salad, fried cheese and peppers, lima beans, dolima, casserole kosi, and two syrup-based deserts.
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Day one in the Balkans
May 12th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
I am a man who loves his sleep, so it was a tough gig for me to rise at 3.30 am on the departure day of my holiday. This was necessary because of the need to check in by 4.25 am for my flight from Luton Airport. I spent the night at the nearby Ibis Hotel and then walked to the airport in the dark. We flew with the wonderfully-named, Hungarian-owned budget airline Wizz Air – which sounds like something from “Harry Potter” – and the flight in an Airbus A320 took 2 hours 50 minutes. Albanian time is one hour ahead of British time.
We landed in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, in beautiful sunshine (19C) and I quickly linked up with the other members of the group (there are 10 of us, three from Liverpool, two from Scotland) and the tour leader Muamer Sivrikoz known as Miku. Our tour bus is not the greatest, especially if – like me – you are tall, but it is adequate.
Miku soon told us his story. He is the youngest of eight children and, like most Kosovans, he is ethnically Albanian. He was 17 when Serbian armed forces sought to occupy Kosovo and he became a refugee in Macedonia for three months until NATO bombing forced the Serbian military to withdraw. Some 10,0000 were killed in the conflict and he told us “When you see a war, it changes you”. He explained that there are still small-scale NATO forces in the country in a peacekeeping role.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, making it Europe’s newest country, but – as Miku set out – the situation is still complicated. Dozens of countries – including China, Russia and of course Serbia and Bosnia – do not recognise Kosovo. Four languages are formally recognised: Albanian, Serbian, English and Turkish. To avoid causing offence to any ethnic group, the national flag is not like that of Albania and the national anthem has no words. Although Kosovo is not a member of the European Union, it uses the Euro (as does non-EU Montenegro).
Although most of the group had had little or no sleep, the tour started straightaway as we headed south-west for visits to two sites of special importance to the Orthodox Church of the Serbian minority. The first was the 13th century Patriarchate of Peja with stunning wall paintings and iconic images. The second, after a break for some brunch, was the Visoki Decani Monastery which is the largest medieval church in the Balkans.
We then headed south-east to our first hotel of the tour: Hotel Kacinari in Prizren which is the second city of Kosovo and the former capital. After literally 15 minutes to take our cases to our rooms, we were off on a short walking tour of the city. We visited the Sinai Pasha Mosque. Unlike the churches of earlier in the day, we had to remove our shoes but we were allowed to take photographs. Next we took in the iconic view of Prizren: the 16th century Ottoman stone pedestrian bridge as foreground to the coloured roofs and towering minaret of the mosque.
After a little free time, the group reconvened at the shadervan (fountain) in the main square and walked to our evening meal at a traditional food restaurant called “Tiffany”. We were ready for it: soup, dips, ajvar, salads (mixed, shope, Greek), casseroles (elbasan, sarma, mantia, xhyveq), shish (calf, chicken), and baklava.
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BACK TO THE BALKANS: KOSOVO, ALBANIA & NORTH MACEDONIA
May 10th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
What was originally called on its formation in 1918 the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, then in 1929 was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and in 1946 became the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia broke up in the course of three wars in the early 1990s into no less than seven small states.
On four previous visits to the Balkans, I have been to five of these new states – Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro – plus a short period in Albania. On my latest holiday, I will visit the remaining two new states – Kosovo and North Macedonia – plus a longer spell in Albania.
This will bring the total number of countries that I have visited to 80.
In preparation for this trip, I read the book “The Yugoslav Wars Of The 1990s” by Catherine Baker [my review here].
In the order in which we will visit the three diminutive nations with the travel company Voyages Jules Verne:
Kosovo has a population of just under 2 million in an area half the size of Wales. It gained its independence in 2008 although not all countries recognise this independence (five EU countries have not done so).
Albania has a population of just under 3 million in an area about the size of Wales. It abandoned communism in 1991. It is already a member of NATO.
North Macedonia has a population of just under 2 million in an area of about the size of Wales. It gained its independence in 1991 but only adopted its current name in 2019. It too is a member of NATO.
Watch this space …
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A review of the new movie “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness”
May 8th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Any film that has one of the words ‘strange’, ‘multiverse’ or ‘madness’ in the title is going to attract my interest and one that features all three in the title is cat-nip to me. Anyway it’s a Marvel movie and I never miss one of these. So expectations were high when I booked an early showing in IMAX and it does not disappoint, although to derive the most satisfaction from the work it helps to be an aficionado of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on both the large and small screens (which I’m not but my companion was).
From the opening seconds, the movie has plenty of spectacular action, lots of effective special effects, and some mind-bending narrative that can be quite confusing. There is some humour and a fair bit of horror in this inventive addition to the MCU canon directed by Sam Raimi who helmed three Spider-Man movies. It may have a 12A certificate but I don’t think I could take my 11 year old granddaughter to something at times quite gruesome.
Benedict Cumberbatch is back in the titular role and has a lot of fun playing different versions of Dr Strange from different universes. His prime opponent is ex-Avenger Wanda Maximoff aka The Scarlet Witch with Elizabeth Olsen reprising the character. In between them is a young woman whose fictional name (America) and real name (Xochiti Gomez) are unusual. So is her special power: the ability to “dreamwalk” – to enter into other parallel universes.
A scene is which Strange and America crash from one universe to another is a sheer delight. However, to say much more about the characters in the story would be to spoil some enjoyable surprises. It is enough to know – as the Doctor’s friend Wong tells him – that “The Scarlett Witch is a being of unfathomable magic. She can re-write Reality as she chooses, and is prophesied to either rule or annihilate the cosmos”.
As is now usual with Marvel movies, be sure to stay for not one but two inter-credit sequences.
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A review of ”The Yugoslav Wars Of The 1990s” by Catherine Baker before I return to the Balkans
May 4th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
Baker is Lecturer in 20th Century History at the University of Hull and her book is one of a series called Studies In European History published by Macmillan Education. It is, therefore, aimed at history students and consequently it is brief (164 pages) and balanced and it is written in an academic style with a considerable number of references (some 424 works). Helpfully it has an eight-page timeline (1980-2000) and a list of abbreviations (53 of them), but it would have been very helpful if there was a map.
Between 1991 and 1999, the violent destruction of a nation of 23 million people resulted in three wars – in order: first, the secession of Slovenia, with just minor border conflicts, and of Croatia, with full-scale war; second, the assault on Bosnia-Herzegovina with a three-year siege of Sarajevo and a massacre of 8,000 at Srebrenica; and third, Kosovo’s break-away from Serbia in which, after Serbian forces had killed up to 12,000 Albanian civilians, NATO involvement compelled the withdrawal of the Serb military. These wars caused the death of approximately 140,000 people, 100,000 (mainly Bosniaks) in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In fact, Baker only devotes half of her book (four out of eight chapters) to a narrative of the break-up of former Yugoslavia and the resultant wars.
Before this material, she sets out a very brief history of the seven large-scale wars between the Habsburg and Ottoman empires in 1526-1791 and the experience of the royalist Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes from 1918 and the socialist Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia from 1946. Once Tito died, was the break-up of Yugoslavia inevitable`? Then, following examination of the conflicts, she devotes three final chapters to peacebuilding, reconciliation and reconstruction, the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and the role of language and culture during and after the wars.
So who was to blame? The Tribunal existed to try individuals not organisations or states and its role was to collect evidence to sustain indictments not to produce a definitive account of the wars.
Baker herself is cautious about declaring opinions, but she points out that “The SANU [Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts] Memorandum is a key item of evidence in arguments that Yugoslavia was deliberately destroyed according to a Serb nationalist programme” and that “Slightly more than two-thirds of inductees [at the ICTY] were Serbs”. She opines that “While the post-Yugoslav conflicts were wars about ethno-political separation, they were also wars of opportunism and control” and argues that “In these conflicts, nationalism was more an instrument than a cause”.
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Have you missed me?
May 4th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
I’ve been blogging almost every day now for 19 years, but I’ve been silent on NightHawk for three weeks – not through choice but because of technical problems. These are now sorted, thanks to my friend Gary.
I’m especially pleased because shortly I’ll be going on a holiday to the Balkans and I’d like to blog on the that trip each day that I’m away.
Meanwhile thanks for your patience during my absence. As my thanks, I share a current favourite song by the Swedish singer Agnes:
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A review of a war film with a difference: “The Forgotten Battle”
April 12th, 2022 by Roger Darlington
There have, of course, been numerous films about the Second World War, but this 2020 offering is a bit different: the conflict in question was in The Netherlands, it is a Dutch production, and it is the first Dutch film from Netflix.
Inspired by true events, this is a portrayal of the Battle of Scheldt in Autumn 1944 told mainly through the perspective of three fictional characters: Marinus van Staveren who is a Dutch volunteer in the Waffen-SS Division Das Reich (Gijs Blom), Teuntje Visser who is a Dutch clerk in the office of the collaborationist mayor (Susan Radder), and the British Sergeant Will Sinclair who is a glider pilot shot down over German-occupied Zeeland (Jamie Flatters).
It is an even-handed presentation that shows both the collaboration and the resistance of the Dutch, the bravery as well as the brutality of the Germans, and some deserters from the otherwise heroic Allies.
A large part of the movie was shot in Lithuania with the rest in The Netherlands and Belgium and, in spite of a small budget by Hollywood standards, it looks terrific with the watery world of the Zeeland and the Battle of Walcheren Causeway represented in gritty, realistic terms.
It is only the third work directed by Dutch filmmaker Matthijs van Heijningen Jr; unusually for a war film, the writer is a woman Paula van der Oest; and you will not recognise any of the actors. So this is a film that makes excellent use of limited resources to tell a story that most certainly should not be forgotten.
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