FOSE Tour 2017. Serbia is a state in southeastern Europe, located in the central part of the Balkans peninsula. Serbia has an area of 77 474 km² (88 499 including Kosovo). This makes Sebia a bit smaller than Svealand. And about the same size as Götaland – Kosovo included. The capital is Belgrade, with 1.6 million inhabitants. The neighboring countries to Serbia are: Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia - Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania and Kosovo.

The Swedish trip. Participants: Monica and Olle Alsén, Lena and Torsten Gehlert, Catharina (Kiki) Hall, Sven (Jöns) Jansson, Rita Kegel, Björn and Eva Lundgren, Harriet Jonasson Lövgren. Everyone arrived at noon Saturday, October 7th. We spent the afternoon discovering Begrade. Some visited the Kalemegdan Park and the Begrade Fortress from which you get a very nice view of the city. Most of us had dinner at a restaurant by the Sava River. We stayed at Hotel Jump Inn.

Sunday, October, 8th We were picked up by our driver (Zoran) at our hotel and drove southwest to Valjevo. It was a busy Sunday afternoon in Valjevo. A huge market caused a traffic jam but our driver managed to convince the traffic policeman to let us trough to our restaurant. We had a loooooooooooooong and tasty lunch.

We continued south to Užice and our next hotel. Hotel Zlatiborska Noc, surrounded by woods. An ideal place for an outdoor holiday.

Monday, October, 9th At breakfast we met our local guide, Djops Koni – call me “Djops” (pronounced Jobs).

We travelled west and our first stop is at one of the stations of the “Eastern Railway”, build by the former Austria-Hungary in 1906. Its reconstruction, between Visegrad (Bosnia) and Mokra Gora (Serbia), was finished in 2010. Nowadays the railroad is for tourist rides. We skipped the railroad trip and moved on to Etno Village Drvengrad. Drvengrad is a traditional village that the Serbian film director Emir Kusturica built for his film Life Is a Miracle. Drvengrad is also known as Küstendorf, as a word play on German "dorf" (village) and Kusturica's nickname, "Kusta". Also, "Küste" is German for coast. Kusturica has also been known to call it Mećavnik, which is the name of the neighboring village. The names of the streets hold names from various well known persons. There is a city jail with most well-known prisoners (see picture below). Since 2008, the village hosts the annual Küstendorf Film and Music Festival.

Emir Kusturica stated:

I lost my city [Sarajevo] during the war. That is why I wished to build my own village. It

bears a German name : Küstendorf. I will organize seminars there, for people who want to

learn how to make cinema, concerts, ceramics, painting. It is the place where I will live and

where some people will be able to come from time to time. There will be of course some other

inhabitants who will work. I dream of an open place with cultural diversity which sets up

against globalization.

We continued further west and crossed the border of Bosnia – Hercegovina, reaching Višegrad. Višegrad is known for the Bridge over Drina, build during the 16th century. The dramatic history of Višegrad has been told, as a fictive story, in the novel “The Bridge on the Drina” by Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andrić. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_on_the_Drina https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q2qwquOEoU We crossed the bridge, had a summary of the novel from Björn and stopped by the house where Ivo Andrić once lived. After lunch we walked through Andrictown, the Stonetown, a project of Emir Kusturica, inspired by the literary works and characters of Ivo Andric. The architecture is a mix of different eras as well as styles that passed throughout the history of Visegrad: the Byzantine style, the Ottoman period, the Renaissance and the Classicism.

The tour continued southeast to Sjenica. On recommendation we had dinner here:

Tuesday, October, 10th To be able to get within walking distance of the viewpoint overlooking the Uvac Canyon by car we needed to switch to a more robust vehicle. We hired a local guide. The fabulous view was so worth the effort of the winding road and the hike.

From the viewpoint we enjoyed the unique meanders and could look down on the floating Griffon Vultures.

Then we were served local specialities, fresh baked bread and honey.

Our hosts have five children, but none of them has stayed at the farm. A lot of the young people are leaving the rural areas. The area around Sjenica has been putting in a lot of efforts to be popular for hiking and adventure tourism. Back in Sjenica we switched back to our usual bus and made our way east to Novi Pazar. A vast majority of the inhabitants of Novi Pazar are Muslims. And as a proof we heard several calls for prayer.

We visited the Djurdjevi Stupovi Monastery - a World Cultural Heritage. According to the words spoken the Monastery was built in 1168. Next to the monk (picture to the right) is a “standing chair” used for resting during mass.

During the evening we met a group of rovers. They were proudly telling us what scouting meant to them. They had just finished their rehearsal for tomorrows visit by Erdogan, the Turkish president

Wednesday, October, 11th Our tour continued northeast. Our driver and guide chose the scenic mountain road. We stop for coffee at a huge ski resort. It was not skiing season, of course, but enough snow to throw some snow balls at each other. We managed to find an open coffee shop. We were squeezing in a brief study of the working condition of construction worker (picture in the middle).

We reached Kruševac at noon. Kruševac – the town of prince Lazar (“furste” in Swedish or “knez” in Serbian). He was head of the Serbian army at the battle of Kosovo Polje where he was killed. He is often mentioned as tsar Lazar, though never actually sworn in as tsar. He is considered a martyr and a symbol for Serbian independence. His statue stands outside the Lazarica church, build between 1331 and 1355. This and many other things about Serbian history, we learnt from Djops during our afternoon stroll through town

Thursday, October, 12th After driving north to Belgrade we enjoyed a family lunch at the home of our scout guide. His parents’ only foreign language was Russian. But when there is a will, there is a way and we had a swell time. We ended up received a jar each of his father’s home made Ajvars relish. Djops showed us his impressive collection of scout scarves. After lunch we visited his scout unit’s office (that’s what they call their meeting place). It was a former community center and they have had trouble with the place being flooded. It had not had electrical power for more than a year and a half.

Late afternoon we met up with the rest of the FOSE group and went back south to Jagodina. We had a traditional Serbian dinner on top of the town at “Etno Konak”.

Friday, October, 13th The theme of this year’s FOSE Tour is “ordinary people’s lives”. We started by visiting FKS cable factory, which used to be the working place for 10.000 employees and now was down to 600.

Next stop was the Jagodina Cultural Centre and we learnt about their work with drama and youth.

The Scout Commissioner, Nenad Jovanovski, is translating.

The Jagodina Cultural Society were performing folk dances dressed in their beautiful costumes.

The Jagodina Culture Centre also had workshops for painting. In the front, our 2nd guide, Nikola Jovanovski.

Then we were received by the mayor and his deputy at the Town Hall and we learnt that Jagodina means strawberry. Next we had a short but enlighten tour through the Town History Museum.

Then we visited an elementary school also hosting the town’s scout hall. We met the son of the founder of Jagodina’s first scout unit – founded (I think) in the 1940’s. They showed us their trophies from various scout competitions. At the very right is the international commissioner, Nikola, who translated at this time We moved on to one of Jagodina’s wineries, the Piano Winery. Founded in 1897. During sunset we tasted some of their wines. Later we learnt some facts about wine making in Serbia and had dinner at the Winery restaurant.

Saturday, October, 14th

We went 10 kilometers west, stopped the bus and hiked a couple of 100 meters to see a uniz (soft,

bright stone) quarry. Stone collectors got their souvenirs.

After a short bus ride we were welcomed at the Monastery of Jošanica with coffee and homemade

avec. One of the four monks showed us around and told us the history of the Monastery.

Here’s a summary (link to a travelling agency homepage):

http://www.panacomp.net/josanica-monastery/

We moved on to Trnava, on the western side of Jagodina and we were met by the Scout Chairman,

local media and lots of scouts. Some scouts (incl. Djops) were doing community work by building a

shelter for garbage cans.

Then we were invited for lunch, cooked and served by rovers, at the Trnava Cultural Centre. We held

our Annual FOSE gathering meeting, led by our new chairman Henrik Söderman.

We listened to nine presentations of Small Projects with a

huge variety of contents (filmmaking, climbing tower,

marketing scouting and inclusive actions for various groups.

The restaurant for the

Farewell Dinner was within walking distance from the hotel, but

a part from that they disappointed us by not delivering what

they promised. We struggled with load music from the room

next door and too little space to sit down.

Fortunately scouts don’t give up and we had our meal, greeted

our new members, making the best of the situation.

Sunday, October, 15th

We went back north to Belgrade and visited Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) Memorial. And museum of

gift artefacts. He received thousands and thousands of gifts from people around the globe.

His resting place is called House of Flowers – for obvious

reasons. Our Serbian friends speak of Tito with pride

and respect.

In addition to artefacts there were photos of a number of prominent visitors together with Tito.

As this one with John F Kennedy.

After this – departure.

Thanks to our Serbian hosts – and a special thanks to Djops and his family.

Diary kept by Lena and Torsten.