9th of April, 2009

I spend the night in Nis. It is a lively city with many bars, cafes and restaurants. People smile, couples hold each other and dogs look for food. The air is so familiar. At first hand I was surprised how similar the atmosfear was to an Argentine town. People kiss once on the cheek to greet each other. Vladimir tells me it’s only the younger generations that do this. He owns the empty hostel I slept in last night.
He tells me Kosovo is a very sentimental place for Serbs as this is where their roots lie. In the late 80′s the Albanian people living in what is now Kosovo, were told by the Serbian government that they should be more Serbian or they would lose their jobs. And so they were fired.
Albanian people living in Kosovo have done so since Albania was “Big Albania”. Then came Yugoslavia, and from then it was not easy to live under one roof.
Today, Kosovo as an autonomous republic is recognized by several countries world wide, but it remains for Serbia to accept this. (as we know history is written by those who win wars. This brief history is my history, taken from testimonies of Serbian, Kosovs and Bulgarians, all very different histories).

13:45
I got on a dodgy van to go to Kosovo, not very different than the illegal mini-vans of Buenos Aires.
The trip to Pristinha, Kosovos capital, was longer than I expected. The roads were bad and the driver drove fast while he spoke on the phone and to his girlfriend 90% of the way.
The Servian country side is a big trash can. The side of the roads, back gardens of the houses and ledge of the river are usually white from plastic bags and all sorts of garbage.
When we finally arrived to the border there was a bit of tension. Guards with machine guns sat on the shade smoking and staring. The road was narrow and railed by barbed wire and iron defenses. It took us about 30 minutes to go through. On the other side nothing changed. Same old dirty landscape.
The arrival at Pristinha was extremely shocking. I asked myself what I was doing there over and over. We desensed into the city from a hill. It looked like a favela from Rio and a Citee from Paris in one. Buildings and houses of naked brick, streets of dirt or broken pavement. I hoped the van wouldn’t drop me off now.
We crossed the city. Fear invaded me. I wouldn’t last to minutes on the street I thought to myself. We finally stopped on the side of the highway on the other side of the city. You are here the driver said to me. Where am I?, I thought. I got off and stood still watching the van leave. I must have stood there completely still for 5 minutes before noticing “Hotel Liberty” across the highway. I had called a guesthouse from Nis to make sure I had a bed, but this didn’t matter now. Hotel liberty was my refuge now. The interior didn’t match the outside at all. Leather sofas, glass chandeliers and bellboys in black suits. The price was farther from the context. 80 euros. Could you call a taxi for me please? The bellboy rushed to the phone.
While I waited for the cab I took some my camera and made some shots. The bellboy was very curious and exited about it. He took me outside and pointed a the roof of the hotel.

“We have the liberty statue, like in America, I will take you to the roof so you can do a good photo.”

The roof was under repair so management didn’t allow it. It would have been a fantastic shot.

The cab took me to my pension with no problem. At the basement of the building was a door with a sheet of paper stuck to is. It read “reception”. In the room, on a sofa, sat an old man with white hair, 3 day beard and glasses with black “vintage” frames. A Tv with bad reception on the kitchen stove spoke impossible words. The room was dark and there were old news papers and things piled up on every space.

“Welcome, I am professor Ivan,” he muttered slowly turning his head towards me, “are you looking for a room?”

Indeed I was. I learned that the professor Ivan was now retired with a pension of 45 euros, but until last year was a professor at the engeneering university of Pristinha . He had made his PhD on Electronic Engeneering in New Castle.
I said to him I would stay one night, and asked:

“Why will you stay only one night at the newest country in the world?”

I am in Serbia now.  One more day in Sofia was a good decision.  I visited the National Art Gallery and the Sofia City Art Gallery which I liked very much.  There was a very good video installation by Nadezhda Oleg Lyahova.

This morning.  I waited for the train very anxiously.  The moment I avoided yesterday finally came.  My departure from Sofia was not unwelcome, I was eager to go.  The exitement of getting on the train and on my way to Serbia was almost uncomfortable.  I guess it was easyer to stay one more day in Sofia with this haunting feeling.

Extracts from my diary with adapted tenses:

11:30

I sat on the floor at Platform 5 of Sofia Central Station.  All platforms were empty, almost empty.  Strange sight for a central station.  The few people around waited in silence for their train to arrive.  There was a calmness in the air, but not in me. Or maybe it was a calmness which I was not acquainted with.

14:50

I sat in my booth on the way to Nis with no idea how much time remained.  Just as the train departed from Sofia two railway workers in blue suits and hats came in my booth pretending they were customs, and I pretended not to speak any language but spanish.  They just wanted to take some money from me, but I didn’t let them.  The probably make a few coins from stupid Westerners.  But I am not stupid, and can hardly consider myself a Westerner (notice the capital W).

Later on, the border crossing took it’s time.  I was asked for my passport by 6 different people, all with different outfits.  One of them repeated himself for some reason I will never understand.  Some of these people were policemen.  They were searching for drugs in the train so they put appart every piece of it.  The roofs, the walls, the toilet, the seats and my luggage.  One of them asked me if I’d seen someone hidding something somewhere.  When I told him I didn’t he looked surprised.

The truth is, that earlier a Serbian guy came to my booth, introduced himself and asked if I wanted to smoke some marihuana.  I said no and he sat down to smoke.  We talked loosely and he told me he had a ‘cigarette business’ in Nis.  I guess he meant a kiosk.  I asked what he had gone to Sofia for and he said business.  I guess that he had ‘not just your regular corner shop’.  The ink in the tatoo on his right arm was fainted.  His right arm was scared and his hands seemed like the product of hard manual labour.  We talked some more and when it came to Argentina he was able to relate it to good marihuana, maradona (notice the small m) and good cocaine.  Then he said Istambul was a big city like Buenos Aires and with great cocaine.  After his joint he shook my hand and said it had been a pleasurable meeting.  I never saw him again.

Yesterday I was leaving Sofia. I was still there this morning. There is something about the city that needed more time to understand. I guess one day doesn’t make much difference, but it did. For the first time since I came, I was able to sit in a place I found peace and become part of the city. I was finally invisible, unnoticed. The place which allowed for this was the internal patio and garden of the presidential building. Fresh air runs through the arches which comunicate the garden and the street, the sun still finds it’s way in and makes it the perfect spot to relax in a hot day like today.

Early breakfast and out to photograph.  I headed out and found a protest in progress accross the street from the hostel.  It was some kind of road construction workers sindicate protesting at the door of the transport ministry (these are all asumptions from what I observed).  At the door, guarded with smiling police men, a man in a suit with no tie held a microphone and answerd to the crowds yelling.  I sensed sarcasm in his tone of voice, and it wasn’t recieved very well by the crowd.

I walked to a tram stop and took number 9 to the train station.  My idea was to get to the powerplant on the other side of the station.  When I got there I crossed the underground passages to the last track and there contemplated the station on one side, and the nuclear powerplant on the other.  I couldn’t help thinking of Chernobyl.

Between me and Chernobyl there was a wall with some holes and after a plain of construction debree and garbage. All I had to do was get in there and walk through it.  Being new in this country and not wanting to get into trouble I asked some people who waited for their train if that was ok.  Pointless.  So I just jumped into the tracks and headed for Chernobyl.

A hundred meters in and I stood on an earth mount to have a better view of the places around me.  Did some photos and some more.   Walked to the adjacent earthmount and then to the next.  Just as I was about to press the release on my 1956 120 Zeiss Ikon, my eye got a glimpse of a bad looking gipsy coming out of some bushes 50 meters left of me.  Time to go!  I started towards the station, and so did he.  A train was now arriving in the track so it blocked me from the nearest platform.  I  looked at him and he reached for something in his waist.  It was all very fast, and I cought the reflecton of the sun from his hands; I don’t think it was a mirror.  I didn’t want to look like I was in panic, although I was.  Middle of nowhere, gipsy, shiny object, wall between me and the station, train just arrived.

I quickly spotted a hole in the wall and slided through it.  I was now at the tracks and saw some engeneer separating the wagons.  I felt safe now.  I got on a wagon and crossed through it to the platform.  I was more relaxed now.  I looked through the windows to see if I could spot the gipsy but there were no signs of him.

Back where I started my morning.  The demonstration is still going on but the crowd is in scilence. From a megaphone in the crowd blasts “Let It Be” by The Beatles.

I think this afternoon I will go to the cinema.  There is a bulgarian film festival going on.  I just have to figure out the program.

I forgot to mention earlier that the reason for sleeping only 4 hours was that I made a reservation at the hostel for the wrong date. By the time I arrived at reception there were no beds available for the night. I had met a spaniard earlier on Saturday that had gone mad trying to find a place to sleep as all cheap places were fully booked.. Knowing this and relying on the warm Bulgarian hospitality I asked if I could sleep on the sofa in the lobby. And that’s how I saved a few bucks.

Today I walked and walked. Sofia is a beautiful city. The architecture and the roads remind me of Berlin. Although everything here is raw. There are also very beautiful churches and palaces, I guess they have their own eastern soul.

After walking I had a siesta and got ready for another walk. This time with a project in mind. There are so many empty spacesbin the city which allow for a beautiful urban horizon line when using by 14mm on the 35mm.

Tomorrow I will venture to the nuclear power plant. I saw it from the plain yesterday, never seen one from so close before.

Arrived at Sofia. It’s Sunday morning now. I’ve lost two hours with the time change and happen to have slept only four.

But not all was lost. I took the bus from the airport and was told to get off at the very last stop, where the bus “finish”. The only problem that came was that the bus did in fact have a last stop but never finished, so I found myself thinking the city was repeating itself when in fact I was on my way back to the airport. After that was solved I could not find one person that could tell me where Makedonia Boulevard was. I finally met a couple that could not tell me themselves, but who had a son that spoke spanish and could. They lived just across the street so they invited me in to get some assistance from Philip, their son. I was there for an hour or so. They were a family of artists and film makers. The had recently made 2 movies. The mother wrote the script, the father was cameraman and the son director. They also had some beautiful paintings. It was positively shocking to meet such welcoming and warm family of artists. After some small talks talks they gave me directions and pointed out in a map the many wonderful buildings, churches, museums and art galleries.

My girlfriend Thea came with me to kiss me goodbye at liverpool St. I always miss her when im off travelling.
On my way to Gatwick airport. The trip starts with Bob Dylan’s biograph album. The sight on the way: nothing but endless tubes of the London underground. Later, a coach train over the river Thames reminds me of the wonderfull city I’m living in. I tend to feel blinded and caged in London.

Inocence is lost. I was blinded.
All of that is behind. Now I see the world as it is. I am blind, for what I see comes from inside, not from outside. We see from the inside out. It is a process of discrimination. Like a photograph, it is not real.

Yet we see a hole in a wall and go through it because we naturally know that it will take us to the next room.

And thats how we go about.