Today was a long day. First we met a Professor of Psychology at the University of Belgrade, Žarko Korać. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister in the government of Serbia form 2001-2003, and is now a member of Parliament. He was in Belgrade during the NATO bombing in 1999, when the international community stepped in to stop the hostile military regime of the Milosevic government in former Yugoslavia. He told us stories about how NATO only bombed at night so everyone stayed inside after dark and he would drive around because there was no traffic. Many people lived in bomb shelters during this time, for up to 88 days, but he refused and opted to stay in his apartment. On a brief stroll around the campus he revealed to us that many of the stickers and posters we've been seeing all around the city were anti-NATO campaigns. There is still very strong resentment here.
Later, Sitara and I took a walk downtown and found that the buildings bombed by NATO over 10 years ago seem to have been left exactly how they were on that day. Tall buildings with massive holes smashed through them on several street corners. They all had guards surrounding them and it was clear that we weren't allowed to take pictures. But we did because it was too crazy not too.
Now I'm not sure about this, but Serbia seems like it has the money to demolish and rebuild these facilities that were destroyed over 10 years ago. To me it seems almost as if they are being left there intentionally as a reminder to society of what NATO did to them. All throughout the city there was anti-NATO and anti-U.S. propaganda, and these buildings appear to serve this purpose as well.
Later, we had to find a way to replace the bikes that were stolen from us a few days earlier because the hostel held us accountable... We somehow came to meet this weird guy who had just come back from a long trip to Asia (and may have been a professional snowboarder?), and he agreed to help us get bikes. But really, he just drove us around in his red YUGO - yes those tiny tin-can cars that I could probably single handedly lift and toss into a dumpster ! What's better, is that he named it the Red Dragon. He was at least entertaining; he told us he was recruited to join the mountaineering squad (the civil service that had to secure bomb sites and help any injured people) when the Chinese Embassy was bombed accidentally by NATO in 1999. He drove us past it and recalled reporting for duty and finding out his task was to pack us the massive quantities of U.S. currency that had been strewn about as a result of the building getting hit. Needless to say, we returned to the hostel bikeless and had to cough up 100EUR to replace those busted bikes we were robbed of. It was our fourth night and we were pretty much ready to leave. Thankfully, tomorrow we begin our trip to Kosovo!
