Funny you should ask....
I received this as a comment on the last post:"I'd like to know if you felt safe driving a car with BG licence plates.
Dubrovnik's great. As a child I used to spend my summers there. It's been
shelled in the war, so I'd also like to know if any damage is noticable now."
It's interesting that you asked about driving a car with Belgrade licence plates to Dubrovnik because this was certainly one of our major worries. For those of you who haven't heard, a few months ago, a car with Belgrade plates was torched and destroyed while parked at one of Dubrovnik's hotels. And it is common knowledge that there are many Croats in Dubrovnik who still harbor such anger towards Serbs as a result of the war that they would destroy a car just for having a BG on its license plate.
We were warned repeatedly not to drive our car there for this reason. But the whole reason that we bought this car was so that we could take it on road trips to explore the region. Plus, we really didn't want pay a fortune to rent a car.
So we drove our car and, as we arrived in Dubrovnik after dark, around 9pm, we were understandably a bit nervous and in a big hurry to find a safe parking lot in which to "hide" our car. As we drove into the city itself, we did get whistled* at a couple of times (although Mike maintains that the guys were whistling at something else). We quickly found our way to the underground parking lot at the Hilton hotel where our car was parked safe and sound for the duration of our stay (at $50 freaking dollars a day!)
So while it probably isn't the smartest thing to drive a car with BG plates into Dubrovnik, we had no trouble.
In terms of damage remaining from the war; we saw only a few minor pock-marks in some of the old churches, but those had to be pointed out by our guide. There could have been more, but we did not see them. The majority of the white sandstone walls of the old city were absolutely glistening.
*Note to American readers - in every country but the US, whistling denotes displeasure. For example, at an American sporting event, we would boo a ref for making a bad call. Fans everywhere else would whistle instead of booing.
posted by Brooke @ 3:19 PM
20 Comments:
is there anything else to talk about beside dubrovnik? ..
I think this was a very considerate post to a commenter's questions.
Also very honest about no damage to Dubrovnik's walls - no one has EVER shown any photos of war damage to its walls. So, you have to conclude they were totally undamaged, for no one would hesitate to exploit that.
The mainstream media propaganda that Dubrovnik was destroyed was complete lies. The damage was quite minimal compared to genuinely destroyed or wartorn cities.
Also Croat forces were around and active there, so pockmarks may have come from their guns just as well.
well, the damage was minimal (thank god) because dubrovnik is under protection of unesco and many other UN world orgzs because this city is a historical diamond of the whole adriatic coast. dubrovnik was never attacked to total destruction in its whole history of the wars and other happenings throughout centuries. i believe serbs more tortured people from dubrovnik than anything else (like destroying buildings :( etc..
I heard it was Serbs that were tortured and that Croatia sunk some captured Serb soldiers half in concrete to use as shields near their front lines.
If you have any pictures or names of those tortured I'd like to see the proof. There doesn't seem to be visible scars (barring battle/mine type injuries) on any Croats or Muslims from torture.
Unesco supposedly protects the Byzantine monasteries in Kosovo, but that makes not one jot of difference to those in Kosovo who are hell bent on destroying every Christian site there, and have done so unhampered despite UN "peacekeepers". Unesco, UN, KFOR, it all means nothing. It's a political world.
The shelling of Dubrovnik story was 99% fabrication.
The "war" is just the latest excuse Croats use to get at Serbs. They suffer from a longterm hatred of Serbs for some reasons that maybe psychiatrists could explain. If Serbs had the same kind of mentality they wouldn't have allowed a single Croat to walk on any Serbian street after Jasenovac.
"I believe serbs more tortured people from dubrovnik than anything else (like destroying buildings :( etc.."
How very ignorant, and how very typical. It sounds like Serbs have conquered or occupied Dubrovnik and rapped it's citizens?!?!? That's maybe the story of Berlin in 1945, but that was far from reality. Story of Dubrovnik being destroyed by Serbs was a fabrication. Serbian troops never entered the town.
It's sad Brooke had to worry about these things, while we, citizens of Belgrade couldn't care less it some tourist iz from Zagreb, Split or some other town from Croatia or Bosnia. People should give us more credit
50 DOLLARS A DAY??? Seriously!
ok, then serbs didnt do anything overthere..yet croatians are haters anyway (for no reason)..well, its true they need to find their own identity (yes, they believe they are germans..perhaps some fake ones)..and whenever we want to go to croatia, they are mean and rude to us..always have been..why is this? do they feel inferior from serbians, altough the west is helping them so much more and they are right now in a better position than us?
Derar Brooke,
Thanks for this post. I didn't intend to start (another) political debate -- "who did what to whom..."
If I remember correctly from my history clas, Dubrovnik was an independent republic for quite a long time, and some of the people of Dubrovnik told me that they miss visitors from Belgrade and that they abhore the attitude of some of their new compatriots. I'm really glad that you guys got to enjoy the city.
Best,
Milica
Hi,
nice blog, quite positive.
Moving to Belgrade in Nov with my family. Trying to find out what I can and came across your site.
Any tips ?
Tom
Yes Dubrovniks old Roman name was Ragusa.
Tom check out the blogosphere there are a few interesting blogs about on Serbia.
Think that its a waste of time arguing about Dubrovnik now. What happened is in the past and frankly its today I care about.
However, on a factual level I think I should point out that the 'Serbian aggression' on Dubrovnik was carried out by the Jugoslav army and a Montenegrin based unit did most of the damage.
Djukanovic and company in Mg have apologised for Dubrovnik (he vocally supported JA activities at the time).
The damage in Dubrovnik wasnt extensive and I'm pleased about that.
Those are the facts if anybody is interested.
I welcome the day when Serbs and others can walk around Dubrovnik without feeling exposed.
for those who say shelling of dubrovnik was a fabrication, i guess the whole war was a fabrication as well. dubrovnik was not destroyed simply because it is unlikely to destroy a city of such scale especially if you consider serbs did not enter the city. but if you look what happened to konavle and cilipi around dubrovnik maybe you'll have a better look what could of happen if serbs managed to enter durovnik.
those who never experienced war can not talk about it.
but yes, media always show more than it really happens so not even dubrovnik suffered as much as media has shown. that doesn't mean there were no shelling and bombing of dubrovnik.
burning a car with BG plates is simply stupid. a person has a freedom to choose to love or hate some other person but not to destroy its property. unfortunatelly, it's happening all over former yugoslavia. it happened to me in 1989 in zemun when someone smashed my car windows and wrote letter U on front hood with a pencil. it happens. shit happens :)
I agree that one can choose whether to hate or not. And it brings questions to mind: Whom would Croats blame for their problems if they didn't have the Serbs to put down? And what would they do with all their free time if they stopped spending it on hate?
you may ask yourself the other question:
whom would serbs blame for their problems if they didn't have the croats to put down? and what would they do with all their free time if they stopped spending it on hate?
vice versa :) it works :)
i agree with both versions regarding Qs for serbs and croats..but still, i have a strong feeling that croats are bigger haters ..were before too in old YU..today they somewhat have more than us and noone is bugging them (except for ceca music) and still they cannot wait a place or time to show their hate. hm...
Dear Katjusa,
This is not a blog about the war in the Blakans. It is not a blog about politics or political rights or wrongs. Brooke is an American woman trying to enjouy her time in Belgrade, and it's not very helpful to have all this wrangling and self-righteous fighting here.
Greetings,
Milica
Thanks Milica, we friends and family in the US enjoyed the early stages of Brooke's blog; when it didn't have so much angry politics. We liked her sometimes serious, sometimes silly observations. Hope to see more.
So what were they whistling at?
Last year, when I visited Croatia for the first time since the war, there was a
huge board at the entrance of Dubrovnik's old town/fortress, a map bpointing out every single impact, chip, bullet incurred during the war. There is a bit of blab under the map (in various languages) stating that the damage was done during the attacks by Serbian and Montenegran armies, and explaining that it was all restored since.
The war had nothing to do with that kind of nasty behavior.
Back in the mid-1980's, I remember reading in the NYT about Croats in Dubrovnik torching several cars with Belgrade plates after they lost a soccer game. Back then, it was actually kind of funny because two of the three cars they torched, actually belonged to Croats going to school in Belgrade.
Re "the bombing damage in Dubrovnik", Professor Peter Maher from Northwestern University went over to Dubrovnik a few months after the shelling stopped. The only major damage was to the Museum of the Serbian Orthodox Church and that was not from "shelling by sea". Regarding what we saw on TV, that was mostly tires burning to simulate damage -- a way to gain sympathy for Western intevention.
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