We Do Adventure

AVNOJ stands for Antifašističko Vijeće Narodnog Oslobođenja Jugoslavije, or Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia. If you were to take a visit to the AVNOJ museum in Jajce – and understand enough of the different languages the information panels are written in – you would come away with the impression that the establishing of Yugoslavia was a very organised affair. I've not come across anything to suggest this wasn't actually the case. That this organisation happened under occupation, while fighting a resistance movement is impressive. It provided the basis for a establishing a country that lasted fifty years, give or take. Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of the meeting in Jajce that saw Yugoslavia signed into existence. Today more people will pass through the museum's doors than probably will on any other day of the year. The local news are reporting more than a thousand visitors in town for today's commemorative events. We went out ear...

Tomorrow, Saturday, is the big AVNOJ commemoration here in Jajce, remembering the founding of Yugoslavia on 29th November 1943. ( AVNOJ stands for Antifašističko Vijeće Narodnog Oslobođenja Jugoslavije or the Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia.) We were asked to be part of proceedings again. Last year we gave an enthusiastic performance of some ex-Yu rock songs (plus a few international numbers) as part of the organised programme of events from the stage outside the AVNOJ Museum. And so, with a slightly-rejigged line-up, we will reprise the spirit of that performance tomorrow. The stage is set - I photographed it earlier today - it just remains for us to turn up early in the morning and hope it isn't too cold for guitar playing fingers!

'Danas je Dan Republike'. So went the chorus of one of the songs we played on Saturday. Today it's actually true: today is the Day of the Republic. It was much like any other day in Jajce when we wandered to the supermarket in the early afternoon. Saturday, however, was a different prospect altogether . Hundreds of people had gathered from across the former-Yugoslav republics to remember Tito and Yugoslavia. As if they had arrived through some rift in time, proud communists and uniformed Partizans gathered in the areas close the the AVNOJ Museum. AVNOJ stands for Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia and the Museum is housed in the building that played host to the meetings that led to the forming on Yugoslavia. Like in much of post-communist Eastern Europe it is not hard to find people nostalgic for how things were. For these people Saturday's events are a reminder of the togetherness and sense of identity that gave them a place on the world stage...

The end of next week will see the anniversary of the founding of Yugoslavia. We were in Jajce for it last year, as much by accident as by design. Our blog post back then, with its picture and video, give a sense of how we found things that day. This year we are Jajce residents so it only seemed right to do a little homework before the day rolled around. Zabranjeno Pušenje, described on Wikipedia as a Yugoslavian garage rock band from Sarajevo, seemed a good place to start. Despite their name meaning 'No Smoking' - still quite an unpopular notion in this part of the world - their four albums recorded in the eighties have seen then remain popular in the Balkans to this day. It was for the song 'Dan Republike' that I turned, it being about the upcoming Day of the Republic (as was). This version has a nice historic slide show to enjoy while you listen!

When it comes to remembering golden ages we tend to forget that even then the grass probably looked greener somewhere else. Nevertheless there’s nothing like a good bit of nostalgia to take the edge off today’s hardships and disappointment. Perhaps it should come as no surprise to you to learn that on more than one occasion we’ve heard people make comments to the effect that life was better under Tito. Sure, he still has his critics but in our experience they are few and far between. A great many people, regardless of their background, have very fond memories of Yugoslavia. And so when we had the opportunity to visit Jajce, where the decision to create a Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was agreed, on the anniversary of the big event we couldn’t pass it up. The video gives a glimpse inside the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia Museum, the picture shows that there are still Partisans out there.

A copy of this week’s Economist is sitting on the sofa next to me. On the cover the headline declares: ‘ Afghanistan ’, adding, underneath the picture of an American coffin being loaded into a waiting vehicle, ‘The growing threat of failure’. I’ve not read the accompanying article yet but I can hazard a guess at the point it’s making. American, along with its allies, has invested heavily in Afghanistan. Time, money and human life have been poured into trying to create a stable democracy. Yet, years down the road, it could all go horribly to waste. Such are the perils of interventionism. All too often I find myself reading articles about the Balkans in general, or Bosnia and Herzegovina more specifically, that suggest the same threat still hangs over this region. So imagine my surprise to discover this week’s lead article in the Europe section of the same magazine was title ‘ Entering the Yugosphere: former Yugoslavia patches itself together ’. What followed was probably the most positi...

We’re back from a Novi Most team retreat in Slano, Croatia. Last night we went out for dinner in Dubrovnik. I visited Dubrovnik back in 1986, just a few days before my twelfth birthday. We flew in. I remember the decent over the mountains. The 737 got lower and lower as the bare, rocky slopes got closer and closer. I think I saw someone herding goats – I certainly remember seeing TITO spelled out large and clear in stones. I was sitting in a window seat on the left of the plane and there was still no sign of civilisation when we touched down. We climbed down the stairs onto the tarmac and headed for the solitary barn-like building that was airport terminal. It was a memorable introduction to Yugoslavia. Down in the city last night I tried to see if I could remember anything. I know I’d been to the port before. Although it looked like the pictures it didn’t seem that familiar. On the main street I tried to work out which building was once a sparse shop where I bought a post card or two....