Beside the Seaside

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In Which I Can't Avoid The War Any More

August 24, 2008 by Mike

Ražanac

Route: Ribena - Karlobag - Starigrad - Maslenica - Obrovac - Karin - Ražanac

A small village on the coast; perhaps a dozen houses and a church. On my left hand side, stony-faced mountains. To my right, the turquoise and shimmering Adriatic is dotted with islands. I stop to drink it all in.. loving it, especially the silence after I turn off the bike. Then, unseen from the road, I spot a small monument on a mound opposite the church. It's a War Memorial:
Dalisu Svoje živote za Hrvatsku od 1932 do 1993

It's all Greek to me: all I recognise is that 'Hrvatsku' has something to do with 'Hrvatska' - Croatia. And the dates. 1993. There were people dying for Croatia fifteen years ago.

The memorial has a list of names. There are 89 names. From this small community on the side of a mountain next to the deep blue sea. But that's not all. Of those 89 names, 27 of them have the same surname: Devčič. Another 20 are called Šarič. There are 19 dead people called Pavičič. Wars haven't just devastated a community. It has devastated families.

--

But I can't stop: too many people to meet.

Riding now in the teeth of the bora -- the big wind in these parts, which as a tramontana had struck me in northwest Italy a few days ago -- with Velebit tall and imposing on one side and the long, barren, empty coast of the island of Pag to my right, I'm laughing as I go. This coast is *gorgeous*. Everyone's been telling me: "the coast of Croatia is fabulous". I'd forgotten to ask what kind of fabulous. Now I know. It's, err, a gorgeous kind of fabulous. Or in other words, it's the kind of fabulous that leaves me reaching for words. Best that it leave me speechless, and let the pictures do the talking:

And while I've got the photo album out, here are two CRAZY Germans (he might be Austrian, come to think of it) riding her 125cc scooter *fully* laden from Salzburg, over the Alps, and down the coast:

Hats off to them for even considering it. And to him especially, for daring to be a pillion (my least favourite thing in the world) with a huge rucksack on. Not because he's pillion to a lady driver, mind -- she was taking the corners better than me.

The coast here must resemble a hand print -- long fingers of land jut out into the sea, before retreating back in the face of the sea. Lucky old me -- the road follows each in and every out, twisting and turning and rising and falling with a sharp left-hand bend at every fingernail, and a sharp right at the base of every bay. Fishing huts and holiday homes gather at the water's edge. Always, just across the water, the lower hills of the islands mark the passage south.

Past Maslenica: there's a bridge here which could take me quickly to the next big town, Zadar. I'm sticking to the coast and taking the long way round. At the time, I didn't realise that meant passing by one of the crucial locations of the wars of the 1990s.

I'm going to direct you to Wikipedia for a comprehensive review of the conflicts of the 1990s. And good old Wikipedia, I can even point you towards an article about the Maslenica Bridge action itself.

This is not the time or place for a full look at the war; nor am I qualified to tell the story. Certainly not the causes and consequences. But to be a witness to what happened and how life is now? That I can do. I'm deep within the landscape of war now. My first days in Croatia were in areas that saw little fighting. Not so now.

And so while there was discomfort and hardship in far northwest, in Istria, now I'm riding past houses that were damaged in the fighting -- grenade craters in the roof, bullet holes in the walls -- and that were abandoned by their owners when the Serbs fled from Croatia. The homes of Croatian Croats.. please excuse the tongue-tied nature of these descriptions.. have been rebuilt. There's another way to tell who the ruins belonged to: doors and window frames were removed, along with anything that could be fitted into vans or on the roof of cars before they fled.

Yes, most of the Serbs fled. Those who hadn't died. Or left already to join the fighting. Serbs whose families had lived in this land for hundreds of years. Serbs who might have had a Croat mother or grandparent but were, because everybody had to be one or the other, 'Serbs'. 'Serbs' who were the neighbours, colleagues, friends and lovers of 'Croats'. They were your barber, or your shopkeeper, or customer, or teacher, or team-mate, or the woman you fancied, or the man with the gammy leg, or the kid with the silly haircut, or the couple who always walked their dog at the same time as you, or the bloke with a fancy Ford Escort, or the one who shared your surname, and your language, and the air you breathed.. but not your religion. Or your "ethnicity".

"The town you just rode through - Obravac. It's quiet, isn't it? Before the war it was a Serb town. Serbs lived together, for the most part, and so did Croats. 5000 people before the war. Maybe.. what, 200, after it? It's growing again now, slowly, but most of the houses and apartments are empty, and I guess they always will be."

Horrific?

"My mother-in-law is a Croat. She couldn't come to her house here for several years. The Serbs held the whole area. To have come here would probably have meant death. When she could come back, after the Serbs had left, the house was a wreck. It's taken ten years to rebuild it."

Horrific?

"Her next-door neighbours were a Serb family. They had stayed, of course, until the end. Then, when the paramilitaries were pulling out, when it was clear Croatia was winning the war, they came for the family. Told them to leave. The parents were elderly. They'd lived here all their lives. They told the soldiers 'No, we're staying.'

"They shot them on the doorstep. There and then. Killed in their own home for not being 'good' Serbs."

Horrific?

(Just to bring it home: Luka Modrič, a Croatian international midfielder who signed for Tottenham Hotspur a couple of weeks ago and will be a feature of the back pages for many years to come, was born in Obravac in 1985. He was seven when war broke out and his family -- a 'Croatian' family in a "Serb' town -- were forced to flee.)

Human tragedies. Military campaigns. Individual stories. Political sagas. I cannot comprehend. All I can do is be a witness.

*Huge* thanks to my companion at lunch -- more than that, the man who *bought* me lunch.. at the best, most hidden-away restaurant in the area -- for sharing small glimpses of the bigger picture. Dave is an old friend of my brother, recently relocated from Norway to Croatia with his family. Like me, he is on the outside looking in, but he's here for the long term. We can neither of us understand the complexities that brought people to the point of killing. Because we aren't that kind of person.. but who the hell is?

Dave: again, thank you. For the food, the conversation -- about everything, not just the war -- and the good wishes, everything!

Dave and his family were in a small town called Karin. Another personal message -- this time to my sister Karen: sorry I didn't get a picture of the town sign! But here's a look down at the landscape around town. Doesn't it remind you of somewhere? The view over Storvatn -- sort of!? It looks *so* Norsk to me!

And because the day hasn't been long enough I met, briefly, two more friendly souls. Riding through this lunar landscape from Greece to London like complete loons.

Spyros -- that's him on the left and ladies, I think he may be single -- took a picture of me *as we were both riding a sharp bend at 70kmph* by standing up on the bike, steering with his knees on the fuel tank and snapping away with both hands.

I'm hoping to post that picture here when I've swapped emails with Spyros. Watch this space.

Beside the Seaside

In Which I Can't Avoid The War Any More

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