A Family in Velika Sejanica gets help from Serbs for Serbs

After writing about the beauties of the Leskovac area and the surrounding villages, I'd like now to share a true story with you, that happened in the village of Velika Sejanica, the village just a couple of km from Kovaceva Bara.

Last time my husband was in Kovaceva Bara he visted his old friend Ranko Milic in the nearby village of Velika Sejanica. Ranko lives with his children Alexandar (20years), Jelena (18 years) and Nikola (10 years) in a very run down house. HIs wife left the family when the youngest son was born. They are (and it's not uncommon in that area) a very poor family and they lack of even the most important things for living. Jelena had to replace the mother and runs the entire household under very difficult circumstances.

My husband felt very sorry about their situation, and had the wish to do something about it.
So we turned to an organisation we support since longer time, it's called SRBI ZA SRBE (Serbs for Serbs) it's a non profit organisation where serbs from all over the world support Serbs and friends of Serbs in need.
My husband described the Milic Family situation and asked them if they could consider to help them.

Two weeks later my husband heard from the Milic family that some people of Srbi za Srbe have been there and discussed with them about the most urgent necessities.
A freezer and a stove would help the family a lot, and as this was decided, the people of Srbi za Srbe bought for around 400€ a new freezer and a new stove in the nearby city of Grdelica.
They made a couple of pictures and asked them to publish them on their website.
Ranko and his family were very greatful for this unexpected help.
My husband and I were very pleased to discover that this organisation works very seriously and that the money we're donating is indeed used for good purpose. One thing is to see proves of the good work on a website...another is to know people personally that got indeed help.
In this place I'd like to thank Srbi za Srbe for the good work and I'm happy to support them further on.


http://www.srbizasrbe.net

Off the beaten path in Croatia

This post is not the typical theme of this blog and is merely dedicated to a few people I came across in some other blogs, which persist in saying that Serbians lie about being harassed by Croatians, that things like that never happened or just in negligible quantity.

Without judging and without the wish to dig up old stories I'd like however to show that just a few kilometers away from the tourist paths, where more and more western europeans spend their holidays, a shameful truth is still present.
These pictures are shot in the area around Knin (Republika Srpska Krajina). It shows churches and houses from the serbian ethnic community that have been destroyed by croatian separatists during the croatian independence war 1991 - 1995.
In the lower left corner you can spot the ustashe "U"

No chance for serbians to come back. The atmosphere around the regions of Zadar (known as heartland of croatian nationalism) is very hostile toward serbians and also a lot of serbs can not legally enter Croatia (whoever was involved in the opponent side during the war and is registered is not allowed to access croatian territory).
that was a little village...
The ustashe "U" here in combination with the "catholic cross" makes reference to the fact that the catholic churche supported the fascist ustashe regime.
"there is no forgiveness for cetniks" the atmosphere is openly anti-serbian!

Itinerary fo Summer 2009

While travelling to Montenegro and Serbia, taking new pictures, sketching and making my collection of Balkan treasures for this site bigger, I share some useful links with you dear reader, if you plan to travel the Balkans or just to get you inspired:

Destination City Guides By "In your pocket" (for free download)
A nicely made Serbia tourist and travel site (panacomp)
A walking guide to Serbia
My selfmade guide to NATO souvenirs in Belgrade
A list to print out before visiting Belgrade
Ideas for Balkan-Itineraries on Balkan-Crew (the travel-album in italian)

My first award!

Today I got a very apreciated award for creativity from emo-serpica of http://pusti-pricu.blogspot.com. Thank you!

Emo-serpica is an engineer from Belgrade and has also another very inspiring blog (emo-serpica) that I regularly read. I'd like to reccomend you to visit them both.

Now it's my turn to choose 3 blogs I would like to pass on the award. Of course it's not easy, because there are so many creative blogger doing a great job, and I follow quiet a lot of them. I thought for that, to consider blogs that are creatively dedicated to Serbian culture and tradition. (Even if some of the blogs I would have given the award, already got it!) so here's my choice:

1. Mirjana http://blogserbia.blogspot.com

2. Nemanja http://juznapruga.blogspot.com/

3. Adam http://www.balkanfile.com/

If you don't already know this blogs, I advise you to give a look. Mirjana is a very creative Serbian who lives in Denmark and writes and shows her way to preserve and live Serbian culture. Nemanja covers a rather unknown area from Serbia (surrounding of Grdelica) with his blog, and mixes creatively researched informations and personal impressions. Adam is a British expat who has made Belgrade his home. In his blog he creatively shares pictures and experiences.

My dear friends on this list above, if you like this award I would like to ask you to:

1. Take the award and put it on your blog
2. You make a link to my blog and write you got the award from me
3. Choose 3 blogs you would like to reward for inspirationa and creativity.

Thanks!
Hvala i srećno!

To understand this blog

1. It's created in November 2007 after too much ugly things I had to read in Swiss Massmedia about Serbia. What's going on in Kosovo is one thing. I don't need to write about this, there are some people doing some wonderful jobs out here and it's explained also very good here. What makes me nervous is, how western media (especially here in Switzerland) write about it. Serbia is an amazing country with a rich culture that only a few know about but many like to hate it. I felt like collecting my travel logs from Serbia and to share it with you, the blog visitor that is ready to enter this wonderful but very complicated reality.

2. I tried to write the blog in English (even if it's not my language) to reach more people – even if the main readers are from Switzerland (Ticino and Deutschschweiz), Italy and Serbia. So it can happen that some posts or links are in those languages. Anyway: Comments are welcome in English, Italian, German and Serbian.

3. All the experiences and things I write about were collected in little books like this: 4. My Serbia experience started with several trips to Belgrade in the past few years. Personally I love that city very much, but it doesn't really represent Serbia and the serbian mentality. To understand Serbia you need to go to littlier cities and small villages, where the big part of the population lives. I write about all the peculiar things in architecture, landscape and design while travelling in Serbia and the Balkans that capture my curiosity.

5. The reason why I started researches in Serbia were for Architectural purpose. (More specifically for studying Begrade Blocks). The more I learnd about the county, the more I had to relativate my studies. So I decided to finish my work about blocks anyway to obtain access to register A of the architect board of Switzerland and then to change direction. The trip started and is evolving.

6. With some fantastic Italian friends I started also a blog for Balkan Nostalgic People: www.balkan-crew.blogspot.com
We write all the best things about the Balkan Region in italian and english. A friendly place for the Balkan Dijaspora!