ok former yugoslavia people come on in

[JohnKleeb]

By that I mean you can be Montenegrin, Slovene, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, and Bosnian.
There better be some :D
I am part Slovene :hi:
From the capital Lubijana on my mom's dad side and desperately want to see it, so I can take pictures and show my grandfather, because he knows he can never see it which makes him sad.

[Vladimir]

1. Jugoslav ex-pat here

Born in Belgrade, family part Macedonian, part Serb, part Croat, part Montenegrin... hehe got a bit of the Bulgarian in me too while we are at it... :D

You living in the US now? I am currently studying in England...

[JohnKleeb]

2. so are you OC or Catholic?

My grandfather and his family were Catholics. I really wanna see the country honest. I unfortunely don't knwo the language and would like to learn it.

[Vladimir]

5. Atheist I'm afraid...

but I know what you mean, if I was religious I'd be Ortodox.

You should definitely try to see it if you can, the Dalmatian coast is beautiful, so are the Bosnian hills, The Bay of Boka Kotorska in Montenegro is well worth seeing. In Serbia I would visit Belgrade and Vojvodina... never been to Slovenia unfortunately.

Which language, Sloven or Serbo-Croat?

[JohnKleeb]

9. Slovene, grandfather's family was from Lubijana

[Vladimir]

11. Cool

try to learn them both if you can... Serbo-Croat is phonetic so its not very hard to learn (or so some British friends of mine have told me)...

[JohnKleeb]

13. Ive heard some of it

and Ive heard it in song, both languages actually are beautiful.

[Goldmund]

15. haha easy to learn

It's easy to learn to read and write. I've never had any luck teaching my American friends to actually speak it -- I actually never realised how complex the grammar was until I tried to teach it to somebody else.

[Vladimir]

17. Heh

my girlfriend has picked up the swearwords quite well... :P

[Goldmund]

19. LOL mine too

"Yebo tee pas mater". I always get a kick out of that one.

[Vladimir]

20. ROTFL n/t

[JohnKleeb]

18. I plan to take Russian in college so I can learn the languages easier

[Goldmund]

21. You know, it's funny

Russian would help you with Serbo-Croat about as much as Latin would, or probably even Turkish. The very basic elements of the language, like pronouns and some of the grammar, are slavic -- but just as many modern words are latin-based, Turkish-based, and lot are of German, Hungarian and even English origin. If you look at the history of the region, especially Belgrade itself -- it's not surprising. Belgrade was on the border between the East and West Roman Empires, and on the border between the Ottoman and the Habsburg empires later.

[Goldmund]

3. Hey, me too

Born in Belgrade in 1975. Been in the US since 1992.

[Vladimir]

7. Whereabouts in Belgrade mate?

I used to live in Kneza Milosa...

[Goldmund]

10. New Belgrade

I was born and raised in Blok 45, and lived in one of those new houses in Bezanijska Kosa for a few years before moving to the US.

What about you?

OnEdit: oh, Kneza Milosa, downtown -- cool. I was just there last summer with some American friends. They were shocked by the bombed-out buildings.

[Vladimir]

14. One of my best mates lives

in Bezaniska Kosa... yeah, I lived in the centre of town myself, Kneza Milosa...

[Cascadian]

4. Man, you are truly Yugoslav!

All you need now is to have a Slovenian uncle and you are set!

I 've been to Bulgaria in 1993. I would have visited Yugoslavia but that war business kind of put a halt to that. Maybe I will visit those countries that used to make up Yugoslavia one day.

John

[JohnKleeb]

6. I do have a Slovenian uncle but he's dead

all my grandfather's uncles are dead. Well Slovenia wasnt involved in that war.

[Vladimir]

16. hahaha

yeah, I am a bit of a melange... maybe that's why I'm a bit nostalgic about the old SFRJ...

[Cascadian]

22. You should check this out.

I found this article recently about a man who has decided to "carve" out a piece of Serbia to make it a small piece of Tito-era Yugoslavia.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3693853.stm



John

[Vladimir]

Man, I love that shit! n/t

[Goldmund]

23. Nostalgic

I am too. It fascinates me that so many people, even liberals, think that SFRJ was this Stalinist dungeon with Tito as a Saddam-like dictator. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

[Vladimir]

24. Thing that always gets me

all of these countries will unify again soon, under the umbrella of a Federeal Europe. What were all the deaths for?

[Goldmund]

25. In vain, of course.

And do you notice all of the freaky parallels between the Bush/Blair propaganda and the Milosevic/Tudjman propaganda? Of course, Bush/Blair are much slicker, but the basic tenets are identical IMO.

[Vladimir]

26. Well precisely

Its always about the 'other', whether the 'other' are Serbs, Moslems, Croats, gays, Arabs, Kosovars, whoever.

[Goldmund]

28. Yes

And "we're at war, we must unite behind the president"; "they hate us for our freedoms" (or "they hate us because we're (insert nationality)"; the whole good-evil dychotomy as the basis of foreign policy; how the anti-establishment demonstrators were described as "snage haosa i bezumlja" (forces of chaos and mindlessness).

And behind Milosevic in Serbia, I remember the same freeper mindset, the same segments of the society were behind Milosevic as are now behind Bush here -- the uneducated, the angry, the reactionary and conservative. What really makes me laugh is that Milosevic called hiself "left-wing" while he was clearly extreme right-wing.

[Vladimir]

29. Milosevic was about as socialist as my rectum n/t

[Goldmund]

31. LOL

[Cascadian]

27. I will say one thing about Tito.

At least he prevented the ethnic groups from killing each other. I think if Tito were in power today, people like Milosevic, Tudjman, and Itzebegovic would have been jailed and executed long ago. Tito must have spun in his grave over the war. It was all so unecessary.


John

[Goldmund]

8. Ljubljana is a way cool town.

One of my fondest childhood memories is when I was about 12, my parents and I went mountain-climbing and hiking to Triglav, which was the highest peak in former YU -- and around a 100 miles west of Ljubljana. The vegetation stopped at 2000 meters above the sea level, and the highest point was over 3000 meters. Some breath-taking kickass views unobscured by trees.

[JohnKleeb]

12. yeah Ive never been, my grandpa would come but he gets older and

older by the day. glad to see people are looking at this.

[JohnKleeb]

30. jeez I never expected this to get so big

I am flattred frankly.

[Vladimir]

32. What can I say, us Yugos like to talk

:)

[JohnKleeb]

33. heh I know

I know how my grandpa is.