Day 69 in Skopje, Macedonia

Woke up and started my morning with the British version of Animal Planet. About 10 I set out and slowly made my way into the old city to grab lunch there as it’s a far more pleasant area to eat in than the new town. From there I exchanged 15 dollars, wanting to have just enough more Macedonian Denars to get out as both Kosovo and Montenegro use the Euro.

From there I haggled with a few taxi drivers for fares out to Lake Matka but they were asking outrages prices so I opted for the bus which I had to wait a half hour for and then take 40min out. But the trip was well worth it when I arrived near a small river and walked up to the beautiful emerald waters of the lake which snake through a canyon of jagged rocks.

Wandered around some trails and visited a monastery before taking the bus back to town and getting dinner at a crazy socialist themed restaurant where a cardboard cutout of Tito greets you and socialist slogans, pictures and propaganda are displayed throughout. It’s of course not meant seriously and was good fun although the menu was fairly boring. I ate for just under 5 EUR.

Tomorrow I go to Kosovo at 9am.

Day 68 in Skopje, Macedonia

I stepped off the train from Thessaloniki last night and into the Balkans. Although Thessaloniki had a noticable oriental feel to it, Skopje is the Balkans proper. I quickly found a cab driver who not only spoke excellent English but agreed to take euros for the fare. Exchanges offices were closed this late. I hopped in and noticed that he was listening to classical music, a first for any cab driver I’ve ever met.

We chatted about Skopje and I was quite impressed with his English. Being used to Kurdistan and the Caucasus where the language barrier was so high, this was a very unexpected surprise. He dropped me off at my hotel and wished me well. The room was tiny and as is customary in the developing world, although for example, flushing the toilet flooded the floor, there was a cable tv. Priorities don’t seem to change much.

I woke up and headed out already surprised at how warm it was and happy I left my worn out jacket back in Greece. The question now is whether to toss my 5 euro fleece. Staying in the new part of Skopje, I crossed one of the busy new bridges into the old city or Carsija. Its cobblestone streets and red tiled roofs attest to its Ottoman past. Tiny minarets pop up from narrow sidestreets and waiters manoever in and out of the pedestrians with trays of Turkish coffee and tea. Men walk with pushcarts of clothes, vegetables and anything that could possibly be sold. A women clad in black from head to toe passes me next to two young girls in tight European clothes. Macedonia is a fabulous mix of cultures and already reminds me a bit of Sarajevo.

Leafy trees line cafe filled streets and the smell of kebabs and cigarette smoke float in the air. It’s not hard to imagine a romantic multicultural past here. Another waiter walks past me with hourglass shaped tea cups. I notice bikes, the first time I’ve seen them on my trip so far. Is traffic that tame here that biking is possible?

Hungry from no breakfast, I sit down and order a plate of kebab with rice and potatoes. The waiter asked where I’m from in decent English.

“America” I answer.

“Which state you from?”

“Georgia” I respond

“How many you have, 51?”

“No” I say “there are 50. 48 are together and then you have Alaska and Hawaii. That’s 50”

“No, Kosovo is 51” he says with a smile. He’s Albanian.

I top off my meal with an espresso, the first on my trip so far and set back off into the winding streets. Interested in a dzezva (turkish coffee pot) I peek into a store where a young Turkish couple haggle over souvenier wooden plates. After paying, the shop owner greets me and I answer that I’m from America and a tourist. Coffee is served, “Macedonian coffee” of course. He begins a political rant about the many problems of Macedonia, similar to countless ones I’ve heard throughout the Caucaus and Middle East.

Excited that I can follow his less than objective recount of recent history, he shuffles through a pile of papers behind his desk and produces a map of Macedonia. I notice it includes parts of Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria and a large portion of Greece.

“Greece have many Macedonians but they cannot speak their language. They are no Greek people. Greece is no democracy, is fascismus, understand? Macedonia have many problem with neighbors.”

He asked if American did as well. “No, we only have 2 neighbors and no problems.”

“Muslims are big problem here. They always make problems. They complain about America,” he went on first cursing them in Macedonian, “but America only help them. America give them Kosovo. America free them in Iraq, but they make fight, kill.”

He pointed to his head adding “they have nothing up here.”

The shopkeeper was a balding 58 year old slavic Macedonian. He continued with pictures of his son’s wedding when a friend of his walked in. I said hello. They exchanged a few words and I managed to understand he was explaining I was an American visitor. The entering man’s face changed completely. He began what was clearly not a positive rant waving his arms around. The shop owner laughed. “He is Serbian. He hate your country. You help the muslims.”

After the Serb had left, I asked about Kosovo and what he thought the future would hold. “Serbs will never give up Kosovo. They are strong people. When they lose to Turks in the past, the Ottomans cut off soldiers heads and make a big pile to scare people but the Serbs were not scared.”

“But they can’t fight NATO, they have no c hance.”

“They will never forget.” he added not really answering the question.

I purchased the copper coffee pot for 150 Macedonian Denars or around 2.40 EUR and left. By now the warm morning I had so enjoyed seemed to have disappeared as storm clouds collected overhead and wind swept down the narrow streets. A burst of thunder ripped through the sky tearing it apart like cloth. I headed for the bazaar, at least it would be covered. People darted under awnings and sellers hustled around covering their goods with old tarps and bringing things inside. The storm clouds suddenly opened pouring rain onto the plastic improvised roof.

I headed for a small cafe and was greeted with “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” I ordered tea and talked with the owner who’d lived in Frankfurt for 8 years and then returned home to Skopje.

Thinking back about my day, about the churches, the minarets, the obscene communist apartment blocks, the McDonalds and Turkish quarter and many peoples in Macedonia, the idea of a nation-state here seemed absurd. With centuries of Ottoman domination, incorporation into Yugoslavia and then a violent breakup, it seemed unnatural that the Balkans had fragmented into attempted monoethnic states. It was the current status-quo that appeared wrong, and I felt a historical circle would soon be completed. Now apart yet having spent most of history together, they would soon be back together but in the European Union.

Most of you are probably wondering what happend to Chirol? We last left off in Yerevan. I headed up to Vanadzor and took a daytrip to a pleasant little town at the bottom of a gorge called Alaverdi. I then went back to Tbilisi, and on to Gori where I enjoyed the insanity of the Stalin museum and huge statues of him around town. Next was Borjomi, Georgia, famous for mineral water and its nearby national park which I planned to visit. However, here I fell sick for about 4 days and headed to hospital for some fluids and antibiotics. All is well now and I’m in Trabzon, Turkey for two days and going to Istanbul on Thursday. I’ll try to upload some pictures soon but we’ll see. Again, the travelogue will be very thorough when I return. Also, I’ll be meeting Lady Chirol (Mrs. Chirol in August!) in Istanbul to spend around 10 days traveling together so blogging will suffer then.

Day 44 in Yerevan, Armenia

Took the 10am bus back to Yerevan. As with entering Karabagh, there was no passport control exiting and although I had a letter of accreditation listing where I was allowed to go, it also was never checked despite the fact I visited places not allowed.I’m now staying with the same lady as the first time. She’s a philosophy prof at the university here with a fabulous apartment that includes clean sheets, a clean bathroom and hot water. It’s a little under 11 EUR a night, expensive but worth it.

Here are the long awaited pictures of Karabagh:

Day 43 in Stepanakert/Askeron, Nagorno-Karabagh

Today began with a visit to the Karabagh museum which I’d thus far not managed to find. Yesterday we walked past it and decided to do it the next morning. We walked in expecting a room or two with faded wooden frames and ratty carpets. We were surprised. The door opened into a small room with decent carpets and an Armenian girl who greeted us in English. The walls were almost totally covered in pictures. She explained they were for an upcoming exhibition on the Armenian Genocide for the anniversary of it on April 24th. She asked where we were from and explained a bit about “Western Armenia.” I made the faux pas of calling it Turkey.

We continued through about four rooms with various cheesy exhibits including stuffed animals, a few mineral rocks, and old Soviet medals, letters and pictures. A few things were translated into mangled English. We continued upstairs to the more recent parts where pictures of mass demonstrations, labeled only in Russian showed the gathering momentum of the joining of Karabagh to Armenia. In 1923, Stalin severed the predominantly Armenian territory of Karabagh from Armenian proper and attached it to Soviet Azerbaijan as an autonomous region inside Azerbaijan. The seed was planted for ethnic conflict. The story of neighboring Georgia’s war in Abkhazia begins exactly the same.

The Karabagh Soviet (governing council) passed a resolution in 1988 formally asking to be part of Soviet Armenia. It set off a whole chain of events culminating in full scale war and ending in today’s semi-ceasefire. The museum continued displaying a few homemade weapons and maps of some of the fighting. I asked the museum worker, whose English was surprisingly good, what she thought peace would look like. Uncomfortable, she explained Armenia was willing to compromise but Azerbaijan wasn’t. It was a familiar tale. In reality, both sides espouse absolutist claims to the land leaving almost no room for negotiation. Speaking about what diplomats refer to as “facts on the ground,” the most likely will be the return to Azerbaijan of the occupied areas surrounding Karabagh except the Lachin coridor linking Karabagh to Armenia.

Azerbaijan still insists on setting unrealistic preconditions to peace talks, not so dissimilar to those of the Palestinians, namely that Armenia withdraw from the occupied areas around Karabagh and allow all displaced persons to return. This has been rejected by Armenia and the Karabagh authorities.

After writing in the guestbook, I asked about Halo Trust, a British NGO clearning mines and unexploded ordnances from Karabagh. She apparently lived on the same street and showed me on the map (the first map I’ve seen of Stepanakert), where to go. We set out to the market which disappointingly had only the usual consumer goods and food, nothing hand made or unique to the area. From there, it was on to Halo Trust. After a bit of walking and some uncertaintly, a large blue door appeared bearing the name. We walked in and the security guard motioned for us to wait so he could find someone who spoke English.

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Day 42 in Shusha and Agdam, Nagorno-Karabagh

NOTE: This post is often in the plural as I spent the day with the Welshman and Norwegian. On another note, I’ll be writing summaries of each region I visited once I return, i.e. on Kurdistan, the Caucasus and Balkans.

We went to the same restaurant around the corner this morning for coffee made by the friendly Russian-speaking cleaning lady. After properly waking up, it was off to the bus station for a minibus to nearby Shusha (or Shushi in Armenian) an Azerbaijani city in ruins down to its last 5,000 people. It was decimated during the war with very little having been rebuilt. Only 9km away, it sits atop a hill overlooking Stepanakert, a position well suited to artillary. Needless to say, Stepanakert was bombarded from there during the war until the Armenians finally succeeded in taking it. Shamil Baseyev, of Chechen fame and most likely behind the Beslan massacre in Russia, fought here against the Armenians. While it’s no secret that many radical Islamic fighers flock to Iraq and Afghanistan, Karabagh attracted them as well back from 1990-1994. Former Afghan mujahadeen were even brought in to fight. I thought over all of this in Shusha’s deathly silence. Unlike Stepanakert, Shusha hasn’t changed much since the war.

We were dropped off next to a few stone arches whose building lay in rubble. A mosque with a broken minaret was on the next block. We poked around the rubble and headed through a back alley by two massive burned out apartment buildings. Turning the corner, the shell of an armoured vehicle sat in front of the remains of another mosque. It was a great picture, one that will have to be uploaded in Armenia. We searched for the stairs and quickly found them through some bushes and broken concrete. They led up to the minaret. The stairs were broken and pretty difficult to climb, luckily I’d brought a lighter which had a little light on the bottom side. They both have come in handy many times walking at night, exploring abandoned buildings, walking to the bathroom and more.

I carefuly climbed the stairs walking towards the light. Finally blue. A look around revealed devastation in every direction. Rubble, pieces of houses, burned apartment blocks and emptiness. Shusha is striking, a stark reminder of what happened. Next came the former communist party headquarters, of which only the facade stood. The doorway opened into broken pieces of concrete and a view of the hills. A few people walked the streets, most of whom gave us confused stares. We found the central church rebuilt and restored, perhaps the only new structure in the city. Chickens wandered through trash and rubble while sheep grazed next to the rusted shells of buses and cars. Fences were strung together with everything from car doors to pieces of washing machines. It was a nightmare. It’s easy to see Roman and Greek ruins and imagine what one day may become of our civilization, but for most of the world, Shusha’s future is a far more likely one.
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Day 40 in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabagh

First of all, I’ve been a bit slack on the posts recently but I’ve been busy and just can’t keep up the long posts every day, especially with internet much worse in the Caucasus than in Turkey, which now is a distant dream. I traveled up the base of the Caucasus in Azerbaijan, crossed into Georgia for a little over a day and took the night train from Tbilisi to Yerevan. Spent three nights there including a day trip to Echmiadzin which was great and am now in Karabagh. The visa for Karabagh is easy to get and I’m exicted to be visiting a third non-existent country. The others are Turkish Cyprus and the West Bank. Iraqi Kurdistan is hard to classify. I have lots of pictures and will hopefully get more up, including older ones, once I’m back in Armenia proper. Now for today:

Woke up damn early and got an early bus from Yerevan to Stepanakert. It left around 7:45am and arrived at 2pm. The roads weren’t very good and we had to drive through a high mountain pass which was snowy to get to southern Armenia but we arrived quite excited. Once we reached Goris, the road suddenly got better, paved with lanes and some guard rail goign all the way to Stepanakert, courtesty of the American-Armenian diaspora. There was no border and no checkpoints. Passports were unfortunately not stamped.

I arrived at a small bus station and headed towards the homestay. I’d met a dutch guy in a cafe in the opera square in Yerevan. He gave me not only the address of the cheapest place to say but a detailed map (which he drew) on where everything was. It was flawless. Hotels are about 40 USD here because there are basically none and no tourists. The homestay is 1,500 dram or 3 EUR. Unbeatable. There’s no running water, a sketchy toilet with worms and no lock on the door. The room will hopefully be heated with the wood burning furnace in the center.

There’s very little information on Karabagh in the guidebook and elsewhere but it seems a few things have indeed changed. There are two ATMs and one which takes visa, mastercard and maestro. Stepanakert is depressing, boring, drab, run down etc but not as bad as I’d expected. After all, it is the capital. The rest of the place should be pretty extreme though.

Surprisingly, although everyone stares, there have been no problems with the police or military so far. In places like this, foreigners arouse interest and sometimes suspicion but so far so good. I did get a talking to from a guard at the President’s house for walkign too close but I told him I was from America and he cheered up and just told me I had to stay behind a certain area. No problem. Seems he didn’t even see me take the picture!

All visitors must register upon arrival and although it sounded fairly complicated it turned out to be staffed by two ladies, one who spoke decent enough English and didn’t take too long. Mostly I had to wait for her to fill out the accreditation form which lists where I’m allowed to visit here.

Tomorrow I’ve split a taxi for the whole day with a Norwegian and Welshman from about 10am to 6pm for around 20 EUR a piece which is decent enough. We’ll head north to Gandzasor monastary, Martakert, Sarsang reservoir, and some other church called David-something ont eh northwestern border. There are destroyed tanks, villages and lots of destruction along the way.

Until next time!

Day in Seki, Azerbaijan

Been a rather uneventful day as Seki is small and probably only worth an afternoon of one’s time. I planned to see a nearby village but was a bit tired after wandering the bazaar this morning and skipped it. Hope to do more in Zaqatala.

Here are a few quick thoughts on Azerbaijan:

Since the fall of the USSR, so much of the world has tried to copy the west since we’re the most successful yet as could be expected, it always turns out to be a poor twisted imitation whether it be in design, fashion, behavior, business etc. It’s like a parallel universe where the cheap and tasteless are elevated to the mainstream. Imagine if the working class ran the country with plastic covered furniture, gaudy jewelry, horrid decoration and more. That’s what Azerbaijan is like. It’s truly bizarre.

Similar to Turkey, almost every male walks around in a cheap suit, even children. They top it with patent leather shoes whose toes are so long they look like clown shoes. It’s the national uniform. Women walk around in tacky high heels with a painful fashion sense. The third world is mind boggling.

One more full day of Azerbaijan tomorrow.

As some of you know, I used to be a “professor” at a state university teaching a course on Japan-US relations. A few weeks ago, one of my former students and his friend traveled to Japan and stayed at the la casa de Curzon in Tokyo, after which they traveled on to China. Below are some impressions from a young American’s first trip to the Far East, seeing three of the region’s greatest cities: Tokyo, Beijing, and Shanghai.

China was an amazing experience and one which was even more interesting with the ability to draw some comparisons between Japan and China. I have to say the Japanese do it so much better than the Chinese. Food, bars, drinks, food… did i say FOOD. It wasn’t necessarily the flavors but the quality, especially the meat which was abysmal. Don’t even let me think about the health standards back-stage which I am sure there are absolutely zero.

It was incredibly interesting to see the historical aspects of Beijing which was an improvement over Japan which really can’t compare to Beijing in terms of cool historical buildings. Of course I know the Japanese had the disadvantage of the destruction of the city twice in recent history [Curzon: 1923 and 1945]. Tiananmen Square was insane. It was a lot larger than I had ever expected or imagined. We were lucky to also be in town while the People’s Congress was in session. There were many soldiers and police moving around the square guarding the building and lots of activity. I also didn’t expect the sheer scale of the buildings around the square either. You know you read about the goal being to make the individual feel insignificant, well they have accomplished that quite well.

The Forbidden City was also wonderful. We had the good luck of meeting an english speaking tour guide who approached when he realized we spoken english and were not part of a group. For 100 yuan for the both of us he showed us around for a good portion of the day. What made it interesting was not his tour but how freely he spoke with us once we moved away from crowds. “Thomas” (as I am guessing that is not his birth name) told us a lot of things I felt many times if someone heard this would have landed him in trouble. We talked about how there were so many problems in China with many things very un-socialist with regard to Health care social security things of that nature. It was quite interesting. It was a stark contrast with our second english tour guide for the great wall who was state controlled. He conveyed only happy news of the greatness of China.

In retrospect, I wish we would have stayed one more day in Beijing because we had too much time in Shanghai. The train ride btw, was fun and comfortable. We managed to buy the ticket which was an experience in itself as 10 chinese people literally stood 2 inches from our backs in order to be next in line for a ticket or maybe just to try and rob us. Shanghai was spectacular in terms of its architecture. The only problem for me was that after you get over the pretty buildings it didn’t seem as there were as many interesting things to see in Shanghai when compared to Beijing or Tokyo. I also didn’t like chinese night life or at the very least, we did not find the right places. We went to places from word of mouth and the tour book but they were overrun with older white men and whores. The difference between the girls coming up to you in Japan and China is that in Japan they just like western men, in China they ask you if you want a massage.

All in all, China was great but I enjoyed Japan far better. I think it matches some of my personality a little better than China. China did have great historical and modern locations which were interesting and worth the visit.

Day 32 in Seki, Azerbaijan

After Sumgait, I headed to a tiny village called Lahic with a Norwegian. It’s up in the mountains at the end of a winding, muddy road with rather precipitous drops down to a dry river bed. The population was about one thousand and horse and donkey were the main means of transport. Aside from its gorgeous location and the scenery, it was not only interesting but refreshing to visit a place so isolated that even money wasn’t that useful. The villagers were almost totally self sufficient with mountain streams for water, wood for heat and ample fields and sheep for food. The few shops there were sold only modern items like candy bars, plastic items, glasses etc.

We found a home stay, actually the only place to stay in town. It had a gigantic backyard filled with bare fruit trees and a 320 year old underground hamam which we got to use for free and did both nights. Also got to wash all my clothes in it. It was the most hot water I’ll see the entire trip I’m sure. We hiked around both days following muddy sheep paths through the hills and river beds. The second day we bought hot dogs and roasted them over a campfire in the middle of nowhere.

Today’ I’m in Sheki (or Seki) which is a mountain town of 63,000 in northwestern Azerbaijan. It’s picturesque but has seeminly little to do. Tomorrow we’ll walk around a bit and then head for a nearby village named Kish where the hiking is supposed to be good. Afterwards it’s off to Zaqatala and then to Georgia where I’ll spend a night in Tbilisi and head on to Yerevan, Armenia.

More soon! Internet rocks here!