Serbia needs some work Nov 4
Bernard.
We are spending a week in Novi Sad without doing any travel. We were going to go to Osijek, across the border in Croatia, but it turned out to be a holiday there and everything was closed the day we planned to go, so we delayed that trip for later this month.
I found out that a book club I was intending to attend was reading the book “Death of a Red Heroine” and would be discussing it at a meeting 3 days after I arrive back in Vancouver. I looked for the book in Novi Sad and it simply isn’t here. I looked for it in Prague and it wasn’t there. So I decided to do what any internet connected person would do in this day and age: I ordered it from Amazon. They advertise that they can get it to anywhere in the world in as short as 2 to 4 days, depending on what type of shipping you order. So I ordered the book to come to me here in Novi Sad. The cost of the book itself in soft cover was $11.20. There were 3 different shipping options, and because I wanted to make sure I got the book in time to read it, I paid $37 for high priority international shipping. It was supposed to arrive from the US in no more than 4 days.
Well, Amazon did their thing. Two days after I ordered the book, we got a call from Serbian customs at the airport. The book is there, and if I want it to continue on its way to me, I had to pay 5000 dinar. Daniella was talking on the cell phone in Serbian with the customs official so I asked her to check the number again. 5000 dinar is one hundred US dollars. There must be some mistake. No, no mistake, 5000 dinar for Serbian customs duty on a book that cost one tenth that.
So I tried to another tactic when Mirko called back on our behalf, he being able to negotiate in perfect Serbian. We wouldn’t bring the book into the country, we would pick it up and leave the country immediately. We are going to Istanbul on Nov 6, so that would be the perfect opportunity and it still gives me plenty of time to read the book. No dice. The book is in customs. I have 2 choices. Either pay the 5000 dinar or send the book back to Amazon.
Aside from being more than a bit annoying, this to me is a sign of Serbia’s immaturity as a country ready to join the western world. The world economy today is based to a large extent on globalization and trade. If people in your country cannot trade freely with their neighbours, the people will be much poorer. Mirko thinks that some of the rich people in the country have so much power, they get the government to enshrine their import monopolies. Therefore, only certain people can import freely. Everyone else has major cost and red tape. Whether or not that is true, Serbia is already way behind most of Europe economically. This type of practice and law can only make the gaps even bigger, as other countries progress faster because of open economies, Serbia will languish until it changes these types of laws.
I considered whether to write to the Serbian Minister of Trade. On the ministry of trade’s website, the only contact was by mail. There was no email address. In the circumstances, I decided not to write a letter. At least while I am still here. But I won’t pay the 5000 dinar on principle alone.
Daniella
Since I had a whole week in Novi Sad, I decided to take Serbian language lessons. A daughter of a friend of Mirko (of course) has a language school. Most of her students are university students, some business people, but very few adventurers (her description) like me. Serbian speakers pride themselves on a system of reading and writing where what you see is what you get. You write exactly what you hear. There are no silent consonants, no two ways of pronouncing the same vowel, nothing. But the problem is in the declinations of nouns. Nouns change depending on their place in the sentence, gender, subject or object, and much more. Not seeing much use for the Serbian language once I return to Vancouver, I look at the lessons as a double dose of vitamin E every day (brain food).
Nataša, my teacher, as well as teaching me, is another window to learning about and understanding Serbs. What a wonderful double opportunity I have. From her I learned that Serbs do not have a very good concept of the future. It is expressed not only in personal life, not making definite plans for next week, but also in the economy. According to her, until sometime in the 20th century, farmers would not plant crops which do not yield fruit or vegetables right away. They glorify the past, which may explain why so many were swept by the rhetoric of the leaders of the late 80’s who wanted to bring back some splendid past, and were blinded to the fact that they were being robbed by the leaders of money as well as of the future.
We walk, we bicycle, and our lives have definitely slowed down.
Staying put, we eat at home more. We know well the market, where we buy fruits and vegetables, and we know where everything is in the small supermarket, where we buy dairy, canned food, cereal, etc. It is interesting to follow our food shopping. At the beginning it was a few items, enough for a day or two. Then we added packaged soup, cheese, and tuna. As time goes on, we are more adventurous: we added canned vegetables, beans, rice and pasta. Cooking is still very basic, with two hot plates, two pots, and no counter space, no oven and not even microwave oven, which is not common here anyway. In the pekara, bakery, we buy bread and burek, burekas filled with feta, or feta and spinach. The meat variety we leave for others. Burek is very popular here. I was afraid that bakeries use lard, but was reassured by my teacher, Nataša, that vegetable oil is used for the burek, and apple and cherry pastries, which look like turnovers, and are purchased by Bernard from time to time.
