Pictures from Skopje (2009-2013)

A colleague recently asked me about the photos I have been posting on facebook of Skopje over the years of the Skopje 2014 project. I thus decided to upload the best photos from a four year period (2009-2013).

Philip overlooking the building site

Building site

Vardar

Bridge of art

Toshe on the bridge

Toshe Proeski on the bridge of artists

Bridge of Artists

Skopje fashions at the MFA

MFA

Traditional dress at the MFA

Vardar all dug up

Foreign policy heroes on MFA

Foreign policy heroes on MFA

More foreign policy icons

Gorbachev (?)

Churchill on MFA

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Contemporary socialist realism

Contemporary socialist realism II

Contemporary socialist realism III

Declaring ASOM

Footsoldiers of ASOM

Foot of ASOM

Kiro Gligorov

Other socialist heroes

Some inspiriation from Berlin

Brandenburg gate in miniature

Heroic torch bearer

Brandburg gate mini

Parliament remade

Warrior on hourse

Arc de Triomphe

Monument to some of the 2001 heroes/victims

Arc de Triomphe II

Arc de Triomphe III

Antique balkonies

New antique balkonies

Warrior on horse from below

Archeology Museum

Main square

Arc de Triomphe at night

Night lighting

VMRO at night

eternal flame, all new

Flame, Brandenburg gate

Foutain, music included

Warrior aka Aleksandar in full glory

Another museum

Museum at night

Museum at night II

Revolution museum and Vardar

Revolution museum

New Byzantine emporer

Getting the monument ready

Getting the horse ready

Alex brand new

Alex brand new II

Alex looking small

Alex looking bigger

Getting the monument ready

Mother Teresa house

Detail from Mother Teresa’s house

Ecclectic style of Mother Teresa’s house

More details from Mother Teresa

The gate getting ready

Archeology museum

Vardar all ripped up

New old theaters (2010)

Lion

Lion of Vardar (2010)

Lions at the bridge (2010)

Some of the first monuments (2009)

Some of the first monuments (2009)

Let the building begin (2009)

Mother Teresa Museum

Mother Teresa Museum

Copyright for all photos with Florian Bieber. If you would like to reproduce the photos, please contact me.

Of Eurovisions and Riots in Macedonia

What links Eurovision, EU mediation and riots on the streets of Skopje? Not much at first glance. It is still an odd coincidence that a scandal over this years contribution to the Eurovision song contest by Macedonia and major riots in Skopje occur at the same time these days. The song “Empire” by Esma Redzepova and Vlatko Lozanovski (aka Lonzano) is at first glance the class kitschy pop that works well at the Eurovision song contest (although definitely not the caliber to do particularly well there). The lyrics are banal, but what to expect from ESC song:

Vlatko:
Odam,cekoram po nebo,      I walk, I walk through the skies,
Letam jas niz vremeto,          I fly through the times,
I koga zaspivam,                      And when I fall asleep,
Pesni jas sonuvam                   I dream of music

Background vocals
Ejgidi more dejgidi,
Nasi pesni ubavi                       Our beautiful songs

Esma:
Zivotot e muzika,                     Life is music
Energija,                                       Energy
Nasata imperija                         Our Empire

Chorus:
Imperija,imperija,                    Empire, Empire,
Muzika caruva na zemjata,    Music rules on earth
Imperija,imperija,                    Empire, Empire
Najmokna sila na planetata   Most powerful force on the planet

Vlatko:
Koga spie cela vselena,            When the whole universe sleeps,
Peam vo nokite,                          I sing in the nights,
Gi dopiram svezdite                  I reach for the stars,
So krilja na notite                       With wings of musical notes.

[the video of the original song imperija has been deleted and is now been purged from cyberspace and replaced by the new song, F.B. 19.3.2013]

Of course from the lyrics it is clear that the empire they are singing about is music. However, the link between a video clip that looks like a promotion of the controversial Skopje 2014 building program and references to “Empire” with images of the statue of Alexander the Great, the Macedonian Arc de Triomph do evoke not only musical empires. So unsurprisingly some media in Greece took offense (‘ONCE AGAIN FYR MACEDONIA PROVOKES GREECE’ and a moronic comment by the Greece ESC participant Agathonas Iakovides: “The Greek history cannot be insulted by anyone I am Greek from head to toe”), as did Bulgaria and Esma and Lonzano cancelled their trip to Bulgaria. Luckily Germany did not protest over the video showing a monument that looks a lot like the Brandenburg gate & Siegessäule in miniature or France (and Romania) for the depiction of an obvious copy of the Arc de Triomphe or the Bucharest Arcul de Triumf.

Also domestically, the video came under extensive criticism for showing off Skopje 2014 project that is rejected by many as kitschy, wasteful and nationalist. The combined international and domestic protests thus made the MRT withdraw the clip as “it did not comply with the broadcasters requirements.” In its stead, some really funny spoofs popped up, the one being the clip below, a wonderfully cut duet of Darth Vader and Jabba the Hut

[unfortunately this spoof has been deleted for copyright infringement, F.B. 19.3.2013]

So what does this silly story have to do with the unrest that has been going on in Skopje in the days since Talat Xhaferi,  a former NLA commander, was named Minister of Defense or the mediation of the EU in Macedonia a few days ago over the opposition boycott of parliament and the threat to boycott elections?

The current government has maneuvered the country in a very difficult and volatile situation. The unrest first by Macedonian war veterans against Xhaferis nomination, followed by Albanian counter protests demonstrate the volatility of Macedonia and the risks of playing with nationalism in an environment were few of the underlying prejudice and segregation has been tackled. Instead, the ruling VRME-DPMNE has been combining its nation building strategy with accommodating the largest Albanian party–a double act that seems to be running out of steam. At the same time, the opposition boycott and EU intervention is reminiscent of the polarization that has plagued neighboring Albania for more than a decade and is both a sign of weakness of the opposition and the government. Finally, the Eurovision ‘scandal’ (the only real scandal or rather sad part of the story is that Esma Redzepova is one of the two singing the song) signals either naivete or willful confrontation the current Macedonian government seems to be good at provoking Greece and Bulgaria. These three dimensions–rising nationalist confrontation, polarization of the main parties that requires external mediation and continued confrontation with Greece–cannot be good news for Macedonia and filming a new video clip is the least of all troubles coming from all of this.

A friendly letter from the International University of Struga

In June I wrote a post on private universities in the Balkans with strange names or websites. For some reason, the blog was picked up a few days ago and become quiet popular. In addition to a short article in Vijesti which noted that UDG (or as a reader calls is JuDiDži) is on number 3 of the top 10, I also received the letter below from the International University of Struga.

Dear Mr. Florian Bieber,

Well, Mr. Bieber let us teach You that when a researcher comes out with such accusations should make serious research because any other allegation without facts is cause for a criminal offense.

Even relying on data from our website, we responsibly claim that you have not handled it well because what you say African-American students, is information that we have a good academic collaboration with the University of California precisely with American Heritage University.

In the future when you undertake to write articles of this type be well informed and do not play with the dignity of institutions and employees. From where do you know the academic staff and their quality? You stay in your office, click on the web pages of universities and make decisions, well, Sir in order to come up with such facts at least you are supposed to stand up from the chair in which you are pinned and to visit these universities and explore, if one day you want to become a professor in the true sense of the word.

According to the above and according to the values that should possess a professor turns out that you are in the top list of most miserable professors who play and imagine they are scientists.

Obviously you need attention!

We inform you that for Your accusation the legal department of our university is preparing to submit criminal charge because it is a slander.

Sincerely,

International University of Struga

Now I should clarify a few things: the list of “bizzare” universities was based on the self-presentation of the universities and their name. Some might be trying hard to become respectable institutions, some are degree mills (I just heard that there is a university in the region housed in a former mill).

Now specifically for the International University of Struga. When I wrote that “According to the website, the uni boasts many African-American and Asian-American students, palm trees,” this was not based on field work, but on irony. If one visits the website of the university the pictures look like they were bought from the ACME university photo shop and do not seem to show much of IUST. Thus, if one were to rely on the photos, it would look like the student population of IUST looks more like that of a college in California than on lake Ohird.I am also curious to hear how claiming that a university is having African and Asian-American students and palm trees is slanderous (even if it is not true).

The Risks and Benefits of Ethnic Citizenship

Millions of people in Southeastern Europe are citizens of more than one state. Many acquired this status when they were gastarbajteri [guestworkers] in Germany, Austria and elsewhere in Western Europe; others received a second passport as they fled the wars that accompanied the disintegration of Yugoslavia. For some people, dual citizenship seems due to a quirk of fate: for example, their father may have been born in a different Yugoslav republic than they and held that republican citizenship when Yugoslavia was still a single country and when republican citizenship had no practical significance. Due to some long abandoned vestiges of patriarchal rules, today they have the right to a second citizenship of a republic they never lived in. Among the many ‘multi-citizens’ of Southeastern Europe there are probably a million who have received passports from countries they have never lived in. Hundreds of thousands of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina hold Croatian citizenship as a result of their ethnic Croat identity. Over 50,000 Macedonians also became citizens of Bulgaria after declaring themselves to be ethnically Bulgarian. Recently, Serbs from Bosnia (and elsewhere) have been able to become Serbian citizens by declaring their loyalty to Serbia—most prominently, President of the Serb Republic, one of the two Bosnian entities, and Milorad Dodik, who publicly submitted his request for citizenship to the Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić in 2007. Nearly a million Moldovan citizens have applied for Romanian passports and over 100,000 have been granted EU citizenship, on the grounds that they are descendents of former Romanian citizens who lost their Romanian citizenship when Bessarabia was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1944.

Read the rest of the comment at: http://www.citsee.eu/op-ed/risks-and-benefits-ethnic-citizenship

 

Fantasies of New Cities: Andric’s Marina, an older Skopje and other etno-dreams

Ever since the mayor of Trebinje Božidar Vučurević announced during the siege of Dubrovnik that “we will build an older and nicer Dubrovnik” (Sagradit ćemo još stariji i ljepši Dubrovnik), the destruction of cities and towns has been matched with fantasies of new cities and towns which would reflect the respective nationalist fantasies. The engineers of destruction were so successful in their destruction of cities that even 20 years since the beginning of the wars, these fantasies remained largely unrealized (if one excludes the successful elimination of reminders of the other). Right after the war, there were plans about transforming the Eastern suburbs of Sarajevo and the mountain resort/war-time “capital” of the Bosnian Serb leadership Pale into a Serbian Sarajevo metropolis. After 15 years, little of what has been planed was ever built.  Most post-conflict states were busy with reconstruction and short in cash to engage in grandiose building plans. In recent years, there has been movement. There is no Astana on the horizon, but rather a number of smaller projects which are telling about today’s nationalist fantasies.

Andrićgrad. This project by director Nemanja Emir Kusturica to build a city/tribute to Ivo Andric/stage for his film of Andric’s novel The Bridge on the Drina. Ground breaking ceremony was held on 28 June (Vidovdan) with heavy machinery, Carmina Burana and the President of the Serb Republic and Government.  A large-scale project, co-founded by the RS government and Kusturica has an estimated cost of about 12 million euros (although the costs seems little considering the ambition of the project), includes 50 stone houses as well as a church, hotels, theatre, and shops. The project has been controversial for ignoring the context of the recent war–one of the worst war criminals Milan Lukic lived close by. Furthermore the project seems problematic due to its proximity to the UNESCO world heritage protected bridge, the hero of Andric’ novel. The plans suggest that the new ‘town’ is more a Disneyland for Andric (The New Yorker even picked up the story and suggested the establishment of a string of similar towns in the US, including Rothlandia in Newark, New Jersey), focusing on tourism (including a marina?!). The goal of this plan is not to re-create Ottoman Visegrad, as Andric describes it in his novel, but a parallel history, a Balkan renaissance city which never could happen due to the “Turkish occupation”.

Küstendorf-Drvengrad. This little fake Serbian village was a by-product of Kusturica’s film Life if a Miracle. It  looks like a modest dry-run for Andricgrad. Like Andricgrad, it is not a town or city, but rather the attempt to recreate an idealized village. This vision is rejecting diversity, but rather projects a homogenous idealized Serbian rural village, centred around a church and the anti-globalization film festival.

Etnoselo Stanišići. This little “ethnic village” (ethno selo sounds a lot less conspicuous than an ethnic village). The benefactor of this village, Borisa Stanišić apparantly brought together Serb farm houses from throughout Bosnia to build this idealized village, including a Greek restaurant and a hotel Pirg in a retro-’Balkan’ style.

Slobomir. This is the only project which is clear modernist in outlook, it plans to be more than just a tourist destination–including the Pavlović Tower, the tallest tower in the Balkans (although the predicted 37 floors seem to be beaten by a number of candidates in the region, the Avaz tower in Sarajevo has 36 floors). However, the plan seems to be older than others (dating back to the late 1990s), but besides the university, bank and television station, not much has been built.

Skopje 2014 differs from the other projects. It does not create a new city, but is transforming an existing city. It does share a number of similarities: It is a project to re-write history to cover up the present. It includes the constructions of buildings which were destroyed by the earthquake in 1963, the recreation of a pseudo-authentic Macedonia architecture, interspersed with a monumental landscape which reminds of a host of national heroes at every corner, but also the old-fashioned style of the sculptures suggests that the monuments are ‘old’ and ‘authentic’ reminders of the heroes, not new creations.

The fantasies of new cities are fantasies of ethnically homogenous towns, often small, lying about their own age, suggesting that they are authentic and old. They are constructing an alternative history, idealizing a past which never existed, from a Balkan renaissance to an neo-classical  Macedonia style. It is no surprise that a project of creating a modern city in the rural countryside a la Slobomir has not fared as well as the creation of ‘new-old’ towns  that are justified as tourist destinations and shed the burden of complexity and diversity which real cities in the region can offer.

Solving the Macedonian name dispute

A group of Balkan scholars recently met in Ohrid and in its aftermath in a creative brain storming exercise have finally come up with a solution to the name dispute over Macedonia (esp. hat tip to Jelena V.). The solution is strikingly simple: The final name of the country is McDonia. It is sufficiently different from the contested name and yet sounds strikingly similar. In addition, it can also resolve McDonia’s financial woes by signing a 20 year lease of the country to a well-known American fast food chain. This shall secure sufficient income for the country and will revive the beef and potato industry. Finally, the insertion of the golden arches will aestetically compliment the existing flag. There are many opportunities for resolving further problems. For example, the largest nation in the country could be simply known as BigMac, the population constituting a quarter Quarter Pounders and many new names to diffuse ethnic tensions.

Finally, it would also provide for an opportunity to liven up the plans for Skopje 2014.

Aleksandarplatz, Skopje

Berlin has an Alexanderplatz, but it’s nothing in comparison to Skopje’s own Aleksandarplac, aka Macedonia square. In the latest development of the Skopje 2014 plan, the pedestal for Alexander the Great is already being built and the pedestal is some two stories tall so it’s easy to see how Alex will tower over Skopje. The Pizzaria Fiorentina on the square already has an Alexandar Pizza on the menu (it’s the pizza with everything, suv. vrat and all other goodies for emperors and heroes).

Lion Type One (old school)

Lion Type Two (Transformer)

Close by on the bridge between the government and the center, four new pussy cats guard over the Vardar, know as Lav tip 1 and Lav tip 2.  The old-school lion is overlooking the newer part of town while the transformer lion (right) is facing stara carsija.

Of course part of the building plan is also the ‘reconstruction’ of buildings long lost. It is thus without any irony that one of the new buildings is called ‘stari teatar.’

New old theater	Old new post

Building an older, more beautiful Skopje… or the city of broken urban dreams

When the project Skopje 2014 became public earlier this year, it lead to protests over high costs, bad taste and the absence of public consultation. The plan foresees a large number of new buildings and statues in the center of Skopje.  Just having returned from Skopje, the ‘plan’ has already transformed the center of Skopje. Originally, it like the plan was too ambitious and outlandish to actually be realized. However, with big gaping holes on the main square, buildings sprouting up on the other side of the Vardar river, and statues already proliferating like Macedonia wants to catch up on two centuries of national monuments in two years, this plan turning into reality.

Admittedly, the plan ‘Skopje 2014′ was actually a clever branding trick of the current VMRO government to bring together a number of projects agreed by the previous city administration and interspersing them with a generous dosage of statues.  So what’s wrong with Skopje 2014. There is no doubt that the center of Skopje was in dire need of a make over. It is at least the third master plan for the center of Skopje, the first two foresaw a modernist Skopje in the decades after the 1963 earthquake. However, only parts were realized, leading to unconnected modernist buildings scattered throughout the center, including the magnificent national opera. This third effort to give the city a coherent aesthetic  is a post-modern hodgepodge of styles, including some pseudo-antique palaces and kitsch in no short supply. It is essentially anti-modern in its outlook. Ironically, by scattering the center with an odd mixture of styles, the project seems to affirm the emptiness of national identity rather than re-affirming the nation building project of the government.

Besides being a costly enterprise in a country with limited resources, the project is also divisive and, as an Albanian friend told me, ‘provocative.’ The many monuments (three are already in place–one was put up as I visited Skopje) only celebrate the history of Macedonians (not to mention the ridiculous such as seeing Goce Delchev on a horse when he probably never rode a horse all his life). It is clearly an effort to engage in nation building for the majority, not to build bridges with the minority. The planned construction of a church on part of the main square symbolically asserts ownership of a civic site by one religious community. Ideas of also building a mosque is no remedy: it just suggests that identity is about choosing between one or the other, not a civic public space which atheists, Christians, Muslims and others can use jointly. Of course not only will minorities and civic minded Macedonians be alienated from the center. The planned statue of Alexander the Great is certainly not going to help in moving towards a solution in the name dispute (as have other provocative steps over recent years, such as the renaming of the highway and airport).

Considering the speed of the construction, it suggest that the government is able to move quickly when it really wants, one can only hope that might translate to more constructive aspects of governing.

Meanwhile the urban landscape of Skopje is changing quickly.  As a friend in Skopje told me, at least it might lead to some new tourist crowds–just like the those going to Bucharest to admire the Centrul Civic.

The economic crisis, Greece and the Balkans

The economic crisis has hit the Western Balkans particularly hard. The region was hit hard in absolute terms, a result of half-hearted economic reforms and the elites denial over the economic crisis reaching the region (a number of government ministers across the region predicted that their country would be spared).
The region was also hit hard psychologically as growth has been sluggish or started from such a low level that the perceived benefits by most citizens are limited. As a result the reservoir of patience is small.

Cover from the German Weekly Focus "The Cheater in the Euro Family"

Who will benefit from the crisis? There are no clear winners or loosers. However, overall populism is likely to gain ground. Good evidence of this is the media exchange between Germany and Greece with German media going for some good old Balkan stereotypes and Greek media dragging out WW2 to counter German criticism of the Greek economy. While for the German media, Greeks are cheating, stealing Balkanites (which of course bodes well for the enlargement of the region), while Greek media like to draw parallels between the EU and NAZI occupation, as in the cartoon from Kathimerini below.

From Kathimerini: EU Inspectors Arriving (and sounding/looking like the Gestapo)

In Bosnia, it seems to disadvantage the established nationalists, esp. in the Bosniak-Croat Federation, but might help new nationalist/populists, such as the tycoon Radoncic, who recently suggested that non-Bosniaks should not be working for the Federations public broadcaster. In Serbia it is likely to help the populist Progressive Party. While no elections are scheduled in the region this year except for Bosnia, governments are likely to adopt populist policies. At least at the moment, it does not appear that opportunity to clean up the act in terms of inefficient public administration is being seized upon. Unlike in Greece, the unions are mostly weak and fragmented in the region, so paralysis is unlikely to come from the streets.

Altogether the economic crisis motivates political elites to claim political successes on other fronts: Unfortunately, this is unlikely to benefit the resolution of outstanding conflicts, from the name dispute between Greece and Macedonia to the relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

In particular, the prospects of resolving the name issue between Greece and Macedonia seems as remote as ever. While the Papandreou government has been more pragmatic than its predecessor, it seems improbable that it has the courage to move a solution forward in the context of the deep economic crisis and faced with the fact that the leader of the main opposition party, New Democracy, is Antonis Samaras whose hard line over Macedonia called the downfall of the Mitsotakis government in 1993.

The possibly most important aspect of the crisis is the policy of the EU. We have seen a serious erosion of solidarity among current EU members and the economic crisis in Greece is likely to disadvantage the countries of the region: Whether they are members (such as Bulgaria) and are now less likely to be admitted to the Euro-zone to countries in the Western Balkans, who are now likely to be scrutinized more extensively than they would have been before.

Why Minority Rights does not have to mean segregation…

All eyes on the PM

I recently returned from Macedonia.  The reason for my trip was in fact a very encouraging initiative:  The OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities together with the Macedonian authorities has developed a strategy for integrating the educational system. What sounds like one of many projects which have been implemented (or not) across the region is in fact more ambitious and might have an impact well beyond Macedonia. For a while, minority rights have come to be associated with separate institutions and a creeping segregation of minority and majority children in the educational system. This initiative and the position of the HCNM have made it clear that this does not have to be case—in fact, safeguarding the rights of minorities also means facilitating communication with the majority (and vice versa) and ensuring that children from the community can function successfully in society at large.

Thus, the support of the Macedonian government, including the PM and the Albanian coalition partner DUI, might make this initiative happen. So what would happen: Classes and schools would no longer be broken up along ethnic lines, language training in the languages of the other will be strengthened, as will be extra-curricula activities and joint classes. If this experiment will succeed, it can become an example for a more subtle understanding of minority rights in education than dynamics of ethnically separate education in a number of countries in the region.