1
Whoever visits Skopje in August has to take into account a dry heat that persists from early morning to late evening and seems to belong to the river valleys around Marrakesh rather than in the supposedly cool hills of the Balkans. This heat tempers the mood of the inhabitants but they hold an advantage over the unsuspecting visitors when confronted with the slowly rising foehn. They’ve been able to prepare since spring and give the blasé impression that it doesn’t bother them. This is very different for the unprepared traveller; on arrival the heat hangs round him like a garland drenched in honey. The heat is the protagonist of this journey.
The heat lends charm to the city. The better-off middle-class flee, whilst those who stay behind fill their space. People change their clothes and behaviour without having to abandon their outlook on life and yet they seem to have become very different people, touched by a wondrous enlightenment. Suddenly, it’s all miniskirts, Ray Bans and milkshakes. The fountains conjure up an illusion of watery abundance in a bone-dry climate, exerting a soothing effect on the inhabitants; the end of time is still a million miles away. Passers-by seem to be on their way to a banquet, like figures in a dream materialising on the spot. Always put off until tomorrow what needs to be done today. The rest of the day is free for the traveller to roam uninterrupted. The pleasant presence of cats darting left, right and centre underlines the desolation of it all. This is a city, as the traveller will discover, where he can become lost in his own dreams and fantasies.
While the city freezes in winter, it bakes in this hellish climate. The sun's rays beat down during the long hot days, capturing the city as an ever so slightly overexposed sixties snapshot. It was these conditions that struck the traveller upon his arrival in Skopje.
Starting off well in a city is half the battle, as the traveller soon realises through trial and error. Even when hazy with jetlag, he must snap out of it. Resting upon arrival is a waste of valuable time. There is no chance to view the city like there is as soon as you arrive. You only scratch the surface. At second glance, you begin to peel back the layers and start to examine their content, value, origin, history and damage. The first look however remains entirely free of judgment and of no help whatsoever.
The traveller isn’t necessarily someone who likes travelling; on the contrary, he’d much rather have stayed at home. Overcoming his reservations is a continuous battle, which he fights along the way. Beyond the front door it’s just one hurdle after another.
He collects his suitcase from the luggage belt and the date of expiry on his passport is scrutinised. The taxi driver hurries forward to help the traveller into his car. During the ride into town, he catches a glimpse of what he will repeatedly see over the next few days in ever-changing guises. Those first impressions build the frame within which the picture of Skopje will be painted. Minarets. The roof of a football stadium. A bridge. Concrete. The Cyrillic alphabet. Green hilltops. And then there is the river that is neither wide nor deep enough to divide the city entirely, giving it that pleasant schizophrenia characteristic of all cities intersected by a river. All thrown together in a melting pot of heat.
2
The hotel the traveller stays in is a middle-class brothel masquerading as a youth hostel. There is something comical about seeing overweight couples sitting at the bar who, when the routine small talk is concluded, silently disappear to one of the simple rooms where nothing can distract them from their sexual duty. The women have chubby ankles; their skirts come to just above their knees, tights bursting at the seams, like the fruit they are carrying. The men rub their noses. The traveller watches from behind his cup of coffee, his eyes like antennae. The conspiring lovers give the impression of being together, as if a bureaucratic obligation must be fulfilled without any additional fuss; so without the thrill of the chase, they sit glumly opposite each other. Throughout the ten days of his stay, he will not see one genuine smile exchanged. A sudden outburst of laughter is a scarce sound around here, perhaps threatened with extinction, or just never noticed.
In the youth hostel there’s a restaurant that, in case of emergency, could easily feed the entire city. Yet in the evening just a few people sit there. They serve an excellent soup, eaten mostly in the morning by a small group of men who went to school together; builders and machine operators who, slurping, use the excuse of their stuffed stomachs to hit the bottle. And they can’t keep their hands off cigarettes. According to The Economist, one third of the Macedonian working population don’t have permanent employment. That’s enough to make you want to light up. But the traveller is a health freak.
3
The traveller reads in Max Mazower’s The Balkans that the name ‘Balkans’ only originated in the nineteenth century. He reads in his hotel room, on his bed, with his legs pointing towards the south, his head to the north. It doesn't really make a difference, it's hot everywhere and the air conditioning is a farce. In the past the Balkans was referred to as ‘Turkish Europe’. In these parts, faces were focused on the Ottoman authority in Istanbul, while the body yearned desperately for that other, Christian Europe. The traveller muses that this is a legacy for which there is little space in Christian-humanist Europe. The ideology of a Christian-humanist tradition, which enables parliamentary democracy and prosperity, doesn't sit comfortably with the idea that a power had existed on the same continent for centuries, yet differed from it in every possible way. The traveller stretches his legs, eats a purple plum and spits out the hard, ribbed stone. The stone lies on the bedside table, a quiet reminder of what has been eaten and digested. A new plum tree could grow from this stone, there's plenty of soil.
Five hundred years of Ottoman power has been reduced to a mere footnote, systematically repressed by the nascent states which, with their hard-earned independence, have turned to historical cleansing – especially since ethnic cleansing is a no-go. In his biography, the brilliant Serbian inventor Tesla declares his country the defender of the European tradition against the Barbarians. The Arabian presence in Sicily and Andalucía is allowed a place in the tourist guides, in the beautiful architecture that entices the unsuspecting tourist and in the holier-than-thou speech of an enlightened politician – but this all feels more like a strategy of exclusion than inclusion. In terms of cultural history the heritage of the Middle Ages, Gothic and Baroque, effortlessly permeates contemporary architecture. What the Mussulmen built on the continent is intended to be admired, not emulated. The mosque, the bathhouses, the bazaars: they all add to the impression of a mystical, exotic Europe whose atmosphere can be sampled and easily transferred to restaurants and shopping malls. The few historians and revisionists who raise the banner for the existence of this civilisation are fobbed off with a conference on the European periphery. Little more is heard from them. The traveller drifts to sleep to the sound of the muezzin.
Tucked up in bed at night the traveller dreams of a labyrinth with a scent of dried hay. The Balkans, a succession of vacuous hallucinations that last a lifetime. Something that is forever sought, but never found. Somewhere far away, the last European shepherds still wander, keeping the black bear at bay from their goats, where blood vengeance is the norm, girls are abducted and Bobby Farrell from Boney M married an underage Roma girl. The spot where all trails reach a dead end only to then come together again in an imaginary place. The traveller awakes in the same heat he left the night before.
4
Croatia and Slovenia preceded Macedonia as travel destinations. Ljubljana and Zagreb are cities in which the mastodonic Central European architecture is a stronghold against the Balkans’ lack of culture. The desire for Teutonic order meant neutralising the notion of a barbarian presence, a good example being Croatia’s jagged coastline that was diligently restored for the new world order of international tourism. The surreal combination of dream and endeavour, so passionately sought after by the traveller, would not be found here because he was not yet the traveller that he would become: open to fate, intolerant of disappointment. Cutting open the traveller’s body to examine his guts, we find a strong, developed stomach, prepared to digest all things exotic. The liver cleanses all deception and the spleen supplies extra blood to help withstand boredom. And there are little pockets of fat throughout, to absorb the jolts that the travelling body is exposed to. The backside is wide and fat.
The traveller leaves hearth and home, hoping to exchange the humdrum for the hectic. He’s searching for a place from which it would be impossible to bring anything back: it would simply die. The traveller comforts himself with this thought as he says goodbye; a goodbye that has come far too soon, as abrupt as nightfall on the equator.
5
The traveller leaves the hotel to immerse himself in the city and is struck as he cuts through a covered shopping arcade. Architectural renovation – a euphemism for real estate fraud – is a recent phenomenon in Skopje, where the formulaic buildings bearing the hallmark of the Cold War still dominate comfortably. They hark back to a time when women still carried brown leather handbags and wore skirts to just above the knees and the Zavas-Yugoslavian-made cars – chugged crankily down the streets, like builders with whooping cough. Black-rimmed reading glasses with milk-bottle lenses pop up every now and then. Bureaucratic artefacts as conceptual interventions. A combination of rough concrete, socialist state architecture and rural homesteads –that is Skopje. A resident of one of the fairytale houses, which stands between these concrete giants, waves warmly at her visitor. What brings him here? A smile.
Apartment blocks stand in groups of four, like rooks on a chess board that have come together for a suicidal end game, separated from each other by a courtyard, leading the lost wanderer to the motorway. In no other city does the sheer number of statues deface the streets as in Skopje. There isn’t a flowerbed, avenue, boulevard, nook or cranny without a bronze monster gawping back at you. There must be other places on earth that satisfy the average taste of the average person. The foreigner conquers the city in a mere few hours. His first impressions build the skeleton upon which later experiences will form the flesh. In the dreary River Vardar middle-aged men stand fishing in the swirling water, while just a stone’s throw away a gigantic sewer spews out the city’s waste. On the riverbanks reside the Roma families, their children careering back and forth up and down the cycle path. Family members sort through plastic bottles fished from the city’s rubbish bins. One woman puts a coke bottle to her mouth in which one last drop still remains. The bitter air rises from the river crawling snail-like through the brain. Routine despair.
6
The traveller sets forth with no other desire than to see his expectations fulfilled. Yet his ego is inferior to the flood of impressions he receives. The failure of this project will become the story. Late that night he pens his first sentences with ‘I’.
Weeds grow along the river, as do many small houses, which would look more at home in a village than a city; they give the city a pleasantly provincial quality. After the Second World War, rural countrymen upped sticks and moved into the city, supplying industry with workers and shepherds brought their goats with them, their companions of thousands of years. Thousands of goats roamed the city in search of green leaves until a new law put a stop to it. It was thereafter forbidden to keep goats in the city. The goat farmers gave up their animals and a new phase dawned – the post-goat stage.
I visit the writer Milosz in his office at the Academy of Arts and Sciences. A dark brown room where sunlight settles in all corners. He allows me to peruse all his translated novels – and there are more than a few. What does not feature is Dutch. He tells me the tale of the shepherds who came to the city with their goats. We speak in French, the language of the salon. ‘Goats in their thousands. In the fifties, the government decided to draw the line and forbid every citizen from damaging the greenery. The number of goats dwindled.’ According to Milosz, the Balkans is still in the transition stage between the traditional, rural way of life and the laws and customs of a modern city. And this is surely the reason why the Macedonians, unlike their Bulgarian neighbours, regard the presence of the sedentary Roma with a certain lightheartedness. Just like the goats they are all part of the picture. He ignores every single question I put forward. A literary apparatchik trapped in his translations.
In 1963, an earthquake left part of Skopje’s historical centre in ruins. In its place came a number of contributions from international architects who, at the invitation of General Tito, set out to rebuild the city. Skopje became the city of solidarity. One hell of a PR stunt that promptly demonstrated that even the communist warhorses were able to show a certain suppleness of mind when it came to fooling the international community. The architecture of the time has a generous helping of Corbusier in which I discover real revolutionary beauty when I look beyond the concrete decay. Later, I would see pictures of young architects who came to Skopje to make their concrete dreams come true; they did not appear in the least bit stout or withered, but rather fresh and fruity. Inspiration is all too often shrouded in enthusiasm. For the unsuspecting traveller, it is not easy to stumble across these buildings. And inside the buildings decay has taken hold. The various original buildings are surrounded by confused clusters of failed office blocks. There is always something wrong with them; too much glass, too little glass, glass too thick. Or no glass at all. The people of Skopje still need to get used to the idea of transparency – at least that’s what I think. The awkward proportions of the glass buildings reflect the prevailing confusion surrounding issues such as democracy, accountability and public involvement. The New Objectivity – a euphemism for money laundering – obscures anything of importance, leaving the individual disillusioned and longing for mass destruction.
7
Time for a stroll. Next to Skopje's train station stands a small office belonging to the Political Movement. Sat inside is a bespectacled woman – the sort of lady you’d expect to find in a Hungarian bathhouse – organising files. A visit from a stranger could not be more of an inconvenience. Still, I want to bother her with impromptu questions about General Tito. People who are reluctant to make conversation are always a little more interesting to charm than chatterboxes. Pictures of Tito hang on the walls while the old Yugoslavian flag waves outside. Next to my father’s butcher shop in Rotterdam was a Yugoslavian café where a lively group of supporters came together to watch Red Star Belgrade.
I don’t understand how she can survive in here without air conditioning. A large photo of Tito hides the bureaucratic folders from view. The movement has more than three thousand paying members. Their aim is to safeguard Tito's legacy. I want to talk to her about the times before the civil war, about the longing for peace and ethnic stability. She doesn’t seem that relaxed during our conversation; she is bitter, weary and doesn’t quite know how she should tell this tired old tale to a stranger. I realise I’m asking the wrong person. The right person doesn’t work here anymore.
‘We oppose this government.’
‘Is this Prime Minister a kind of Tito?’
‘Not Tito. Hitler.’ I ask her to explain. She shakes her head. For a proper explanation I would have to call the chairman. I buy a Tito calendar for fifty eurocents. I flick through it in my hotel room. Tito with a woman. Tito on a balcony. Tito in uniform. Tito, every day of the year.
Confidence in politics is low. The main problem is corruption. In the ten days I have been here not a single person has been able to explain to me how the democracy works. They do know but explaining it takes too much effort, like having to talk about a family member who makes your skin crawl. Beneath the politics lies a widespread system of corruption that many Macedonians would gladly be a part of. One Macedonian tells me that during a study into corruption, a thousand students were asked which government institution was the most corrupt. Customs. When they were asked where they would most like to work the answer was: customs. Nothing beats the infamous black humour of the Balkans.
It is not without reason that the buildings appearing out of nowhere on the riverbanks are met with suspicion. Public money being cast into concrete. Nobody knows where it comes from, nobody knows where it goes and the longer you look at it, the less you understand why it is there.
8
Then there is the historical figure of Alexander the Great, the first cosmopolite to make the crazy idea of world domination seem normal. He set out with his Greek-Macedonian good looks, if we are to believe Oliver Stone and Colin Farrell, to teach the Persian satraps a lesson. The first universal conqueror who, as I learnt during my short stint of studying history, went as far as India and returned with a statue of Buddha under his arm. During my stay I attempt in vain to get in touch with a historian who can explain Alexander the Great to me. After repeatedly coming up empty-handed I give up. One thing is for sure –Greece and Macedonia are entangled in a bitter dispute over the question of to which Macedonia this Great Man belonged. The Greeks cannot accept that Macedonia bears the name of its northern province. Unfortunately, Alexander the Great himself left no clue as to his origins.
This sour nationalistic discussion led to an economic boycott by the Greeks against the newly founded Macedonia. Access to Thessaloniki, the port town that sustains Macedonia, was cut off for a prolonged period of time. Mazarov, the talented Macedonian poet who the writer meets in the Ottoman district, remembers it well. ‘We all suffered. Nothing came in anymore. Prices soared.’ With neighbours like these, who needs enemies? Old grudges here die hard. A young Macedonian woman was returning from Greece when she was met at the border by a large gang of Greek thugs. Insults were thrown at her. She didn’t understand – wasn’t she about to leave their country?
It is with this in mind that you should not miss the unveiling of the giant equestrian statue, soon to be revealed in the main square. A statue that catches your eye as soon as you get there. There are still ten days left until the unveiling of the Warrior on a Horse. The guide explains that it is named this way in order to avoid stepping on any Greek toes. No matter how many times you walk around the statue, it doesn’t get any prettier. It lives up to its name – a sword-wielding warrior (Alexander) on a horse (as great as himself) with front hooves raised indicating how, in perfect union, the warrior and his horse have trampled on quite a few of those poor Persians.
At the base of the statue, famous battle scenes depict their most illustrious victories. History isn’t just a political statement here, it also conveniently encourages tourism. Dozens of friends and families crowd around the statue to have their photo taken with the satrap crusher. Long gone are the days when even an insignificant historical figure had to slay well over one hundred thousand lives (preferably those with a different skin colour and dubious table manners) for us to remember them.
If I had read about this in the morning paper in my own comfortable, narcissistic Amsterdam, I would have just considered this to be a South Slavic version of the War of the Roses. But here it becomes somewhat oppressive, paradoxical. The conversations I have with these people make me feel involved; I want to choose sides and share the responsibility. It is, after all, man's deepest desire to seek another’s approval in order to help bear their burden. However, the privilege of the traveller is that there will always come a time when he can just choose to walk away. As a spectator, his role never fully amounts to that of an accomplice. What’s left instead are delirious, echoing quotes that scorch the mind.
I am beginning to understand why people here look towards the future with fear and trepidation. Like a closet steadily filling up with dusty skeletons. An inexplicable feeling of nostalgia resonates. The heat here dries everything out, even the last traces of effort to coax information from my guests. The inquisitiveness I have shown here has turned out to be a way to make these long, hot days bearable. As long as I keep on asking questions, I can hold the heat at bay. But it’s the last day and I can’t take it any longer. I throw in the towel, sit back and enjoy being so far away from home.
Translated from Dutch by students of the Universities of Sheffield, Cambridge, Nottingham and University College London. With support and guidance of Abdelkader Benali and the literary translator Jonathan Reeder and the financial support of the Dutch Foundation for Literature. The project was part of Virtual Dutch, a collaborative initiative of Dutch Studies Departments in the UK.
Advice and Support: Abdelkader Benali and Jonathan Reeder
Coordination and Supervision: Henriette Louwerse (Sheffield), Gerdi Quist (UCL), Eddy Verbaan (Nottingham)
Editorial Team: Francesca van Oss, David Rutter, Anuschka Natley, Claire Garner
Translators: Claire Garner (UCL), John Sant (UCL), Cindy Versluis (Sheffield), Lars Zankl (Nottingham), Christina Barningham (Sheffield), Katherine Cliffe (Sheffield), Ine Kim (UCL), Richard Wilkinson (Nottingham), Iris van Duren (Sheffield), James Fennell (Sheffield), James Johnson (Cambridge), Faris Deshuk (UCL), Lyndsay Hall (Sheffield), Helen Shepheard-Walwyn (Nottingham), Emily McGinn-Summers (UCL), Anna Hartley (Sheffield), Anuschka Natley (Sheffield), David Rutter (Nottingham), Lily Trafford (UCL), Laura Wallace (UCL), Anna Rahikainen (Sheffield), Alexander McBride Wilson (Nottingham), Nike van den Buys (UCL), Louise Snape (Sheffield), Cydney Sturgess (Sheffield), Lucas Tomlinson (Sheffield), Hayley Anne Hodge (Nottingham), Sophie Ansell (UCL), Gemma Tunmore (Sheffield), Paulina Najdzik (UCL), Ka Hei Chiu (Nottingham), Francesca van Oss (UCL)
