August 1992
The train for Ljubljana has been standing for nearly one hour in the small station of Sezana, just on the border between Italy and Slovenia. It is a typical summer day. The dreadful afternoon heat combined with the slow and fastidious Slovenian border police at the checkpoint is just increasing this exhausting wait and the bad temper of us, poor passengers, trapped on this railway-sauna. Finally, the whistle for departure from the station master sets us free from every anguish.
The train sets out again in this land which only one year ago was named Jugoslavia and that today has instead become a sort of crazy splinter inside the Balkan powder keg. A land where deep nationalisms have raised ancient rivalries which have led to the shattering of the Jugoslavian confederation made of different peoples, and, in the meanwhile, have fed an endless spiral of barbarisms that nobody now can (or want to) stop anymore. Slovenia is a multicoloured land of green valleys and till June-snow capped mountains. A land that, further east, sweetly slides through the extensive cornfields of the Pannonian plain. Besides her natural beauties, more important is the fact that Slovenia, today, is again a free and independent state.
For nearly six centuries, this land has been part of the huge Austrian-Hungarian empire, before falling down in the ideological “lethargy” created by Tito's Yugoslavian socialism. Then, in June 1990, as result of a popular referendum, Slovenia, tired of being the economic locomotive of a sleepy Jugoslavia, decided to proclaim her independence from the rest of the confederation.
The tanks sent from Belgrade were unable to make Slovenians change their mind. As a matter of fact, after ten days of hard fighting, the powerful Serbian army was obliged to capitulate in front of the meticulous defense of the small Slovenian people. Tireless workers so proud of their national consciouness, introvert like their Austrian neighbours and quite artful like their Hungarian neighbours. That's a quite concise portrait of the Slovenians. Ljubljana is Slovenia's capital and also my first stop in this trip. She proudly reveals her Austrian architectural past in the sumptuous, coloured palaces and even in the characteristic “onion-shaped” belfreys which adorn the city centre. Last year, the magnificent castle dominating the whole city from the top of a hill, was bombarded by the Serbian Mig jetfighters; but today the restoration is almost completed thanks to the money collected from the thousands of visitors to finance most of the restoration process. Besides Ljubljana, is the rest of this small country to gratify a visit.
Only 50 kilometres north of Ljubljana, the Alps are reflected in the clean waters of the Bled lake, in the centre of which, a small island hosts a pretty baroque church. Bled is a renowned thermal resort. In the past, illustrious guests as Tito, Kruscev, Arthur Miller, even Agatha Christie, have at least spent a short relaxing vacation here. Today, the most usual guests are instead the classical “week-end tourists” , Italians and Austrians in first place. Because of the relative cheap prices, they literally invade the small town for a couple of days just to transform it into a huge bazar. Even two young guys from the American Colorado are here in this week end baked by the heat. They are travelling through the old continent and their next stop will be Croatia. They don't even know about existence of a war down there. “How come? Our “Let's Go” book doesn't say anything about it!”, that's their astonishing comment. Bliss ignorance! Anyway, they don't back out. Their boldness has defeated every kind of prudence and so they decide to cross the war-border: tomorrow, in fact, they will head Rijeka. I, instead, leave for Zagreb, Croatia's capital. A two hour-trip on an intercity train. The air conditioning on board let forget the sticky heat outside . When I make it to Zagreb is already dark. The railway station is a non stop procession of Red Cross trains which literally vomit several hundred of war refugees coming from the tormented Bosnia. It's a sad strip of reality which repeats itself every day with the same ritual of tears and despair. Heart-rending scenes of people that have lost everything, even their dignity. Scenes which wear out in a station corroded by heat. Their look lost in the emptiness, miserable luggage as the only own home souvenir. Families which have been amputated of their dear ones, because left fighting in the Bosnian mountains or because, more tragically, killed by shells while in line just to buy some bread. That's the way in which you can easily die in Sarajevo every day! A monstrous martyrdom for obtainining that independence which the cynical course of history is selling at a high price to the Bosnians.
After the massacres and atrocities of war, Zagreb appears to be in their eyes almost a sort of Heaven's hall. For me, instead, coming from the “Europewhichlovespeace”, Zagrab doesn't seem really a sort of Heaven. The famous Mimara Museum, which includes an inestimable collection of archeological treasures and paintings from Chinese art to some Renoirs and Rubens, is still closed as a precaution to likely bombardments. Many civilian shelters used during the Second World War have been reopened, but, the most tangible sign of war is represented by all those hundreds of soldiers loafing around the city streets and bored to death under 35 inexorable degrees in shade which is hard to find. A light machine gun brought to the shoulder as a true companion in misfortune. These soldiers are the depositories of a war which is fought just 200 km from here. Many of them are on leave, survivors to the most unimaginable of the atrocities. Others yet are waiting to leave for the Inferno. Soldiers of the regular Croatian Army. Soldiers belonging to the extreme right wing army HOS which seem to come out from a Rambo's movie. And the UN Peacekeeping soldiers. These last ones didn't earned any liking among Croatians and instead they have been “condemned” by most of the people because seeming to be come in this country for a sort of vacation instead of a peace mission. Well salaried, ray bans on their tanned faces, these guys end up gulping down litres of beer in the warm evenings and looking forward to sleeping with some Dalmatian beauties. “We've been asking for true soldiers and the UN have instead sent us an army of spoilt youngsters that have mistaken this city for a Club Med”, says Robin, one of the nearly hundred thousand students which populate the University of Zagreb, one of the oldest in Eastern Europe. They represent for sure the ideologic and cultural consciouness of the Croatian capital and, therefore, a valid reference point to those who wish to get closer to the troubled political reality of this country. Even here the Austrian touch still live in the charming Gornj Grad (the old town). It lies in the hills in a continuous up and down of narrow streets emblazoned with light after dusk by old gas lamps. The old city holds several historic buildings, museums, some quiet parks and delightful churches like Sveti Marko's and the beautiful gothic cathedral of Sveti Stefan. It is really an architectural jewel which contrasts with the suburbs cementated of stolid and gray condominiums, a fruit produced by over forty years of socialism. Life in Zagreb in these days is conditioned by paradoxes and contradictions.
Croatia is a country in war, her economy is seriously in pieces, inflation is galopping and the weak dinara is getting more and more to be a mere piece of paper. Nevertheless, people here in Zagreb want to have fun at all costs and emulate so their luckier western Europeans cousins. Several pubs in Gornj Grad are crowded by thousands of youngsters till late night. They sit outside the many coffee streets and their likeable chats seem to want exorcize the war nightmares of Sarajevo. Though in a foced normality, they naturally laugh and joke as if, they would wish to witness life is going on in this city; and wherever laughing is not very helpful, Croatians turn to their fervid nationalism. Hundreds of Croatian flags are raining from the balcons of city centre. They seem to witness a kind of nationalism which represent an excellent panacea (cure-all) against all the misfortunes caused by this war. Above all, right in these days, nationalism is identified with sport. In the last few days, the Olympic Games in Barcelona have already given two bronze medals to this country which is new even for the sport's geography. At the “Studenthoteli Residence” I have watched on the TV the basketball final match USA-Croatia. This residence hosts the UN Peace soldiers and being the only tourist in it I have aroused their curiosity. Naturally, the wild enthusiasm of these soldiers is totally sided with the US team and every prodigious smash of Jordan is raising inhuman screaming. A friendly Croatian guy and I are the only ones in supporting Kukoc and companions. Even if at the end of the match Croatia is thirty points behind the Americans, we are happy anyway. For the first time in months Croatian have exulted for something different than a military victory and the silver medal won by the basketball team is worth as a gold one.
From Zagreb to the Istrian peninsula. Boarded by Adriatic sea, Istria could be twin of Tuscany or Provence for the majestic beauty of the landscape. Charming medieval villages lie on the top of green hills whose flanks are covered with manes of Cypres trees. A sweet and generous nature, geomerically perfect, even sublime, that even makes the most simple among the homesteads become a monument. What about the coast ? Just delightful. It is jagged in a rapid succession of bays in which colorful villages are reflected. They still keep intact their Venetian historical roots: the beautiful Byzantine mosaics in Porec or the suggestive port of Rovigno, where houses are built on a promontory leaning into the sea and where streets are paved with white stones. Istria is also the richest region of Croatia thanks to tourism. Her inhabitants have seen the war only on the TV which is good for the safety of the thousand of tourists crowding the coast in these summer weeks. Not many Germans as in the past years, but, to make up for it, Italians are dropped here like an army of barbarians. “In Zagreb they only think of earning money, in Bosnia to massacre each other and here we only think of having fun”, comments ironically a barman in a Rovigno's cafè. His Italian is perfect because, like many other Istrians, he prefers to watch RAI television instead of the Croatian one, which, on the contrary, seems to be a neverending war bulletin. A bus is now bringing me back to Italy. From Pula to Trieste it is a four hour-journey across the natural beauties of this land. I get to Trieste, under a starry sky, just in time to assist with some friends living here at a James Taylor's castle in the magic scenario of the San Vito's castle. The following day I discover reading a newspaper to have avoided a near tornado in Rovigno: three deaths, hundreds of pines and hotel bungalows destroyed, even some yachts sank in the harbour.
You can dodge a war but not the strenght of Mother Nature. Sic est!
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