Osijek, Croatia

Today we were back in Croatia.  Seems like just a week or so that we were here before – how time flies! The ship made a ‘technical stop’ so that this morning Elva and Carol could go along with two busloads of other guests to a wine tasting at Ilocki Padrumi.  They left at 8:30 a.m. for a short ride, a short walk to the Municipal Museum of Ilock.  Elva said the museum was a real trip through history from pre-historic times to the present and quite well done.  Almost next door was the winery so, by ten in the morning, they were swishing and sipping their way through 5 glasses of wine.  Carol said they were not typically small pours as one usually has at these events but actually glasses of wine as would normally be served if ordered.  Since, when they returned to the ship at 12:30, they were walking steadily and talking clearly they simply had a good time.

I hung out in the lounge and tried to catch up here online but service is bad so I just wrote and did some research and chatted with friends.  We sailed up to Vukavar where the optional tour people re-boarded. Before they returned there was a group of local musicians that sand and played guitars, bass, and a small local type of combination between mandolin and banjo.  They were very good singing their folk music but really got the crowd roaring and singing along when they broke out into Oh Susannah and Country Roads.  Their host introduced the music by saying it would sound familiar but the tunes were old Croatian melodies!

Shortly after lunch we left again for the included tour.  We were not on the buses long but it was a very interesting trip.  The small towns we wound our way through had roads that the bus barely was able to manage but as always the drivers do very well.  They must do the same route several days a week.  The local tours are provided by local companies who work with all the different river boats and tour companies.

Bomb damage.  There was no air war but mortars, granadees and other arms are all referred to as bombs.

Mortar shell damage of a factory which has never been rebuilt.  The business is gone.

When I took this phot through the bus window I didn't realize that this was our hosts home.  I was just noticing the chair on the ledge.

Eastern Croatia is the breadbasket of Croatia and nearby Osijek is where we had our home hosted overnight not long ago.  Today we stopped in a Hungarian Village for a Home Hosted coffee break.  David and Valarija were lovely people.  Each of the four buses was divided into smaller groups and stops throughout Loslova let us have a quick peek at the varying streets.  But variety was in the hands of the individual homeowners.

Let me clarify why the village is considered Hungarian even though we have not left Croatia.  I may have said this before because it has been clearly defined for us in each country where we have been.  The village was once within the Hungarian boarders.  Over time and throughout an 800 year history the people have, so to speak, gone to sleep in one country and awakened in another.  Out guide, Teodora, emphasized this.  She is 27 and her family has always been living in the same city.  But she has had four passports –Yugoslavian, Serbian, Yugoslavian Republic, and now Croatian!  The land is permanent but the governments are fluid. 

In 1991 the war came to Loslava.  In Croatia it is called the Homeland War.  In Bosnia the Serbian War.  In Serbia it is the Civil War.  It is all the same conflict.  And it is in modern times.  Actually the worst of it in Bosnia was ten years after Sarajevo hosted the Olympics.  But resentments and wars have long been the history of the Balkan Peninsula.  Hence, people do not identify with their country as much as their nationality by family history.  This village is Hungarian.  In the States we would say Hungarian American if we were to identify people.  Here they leave off the current country and are just a Hungarian Village that happens to be in Croatia.  Voting rights and citizenship is Croatian but the hearts and customs are Hungarian.

Our hosts shared with us a nice choice of coffee, tea, Elderflower juice, and a phyllo dough cake laced with shredded pumpkin and layers of cheese. The house looks new as does the whole village.  It is, since during the war the village was razed!  David and the men of the village fought to save it for five weeks even when grenades and bombs, not dropped from the air however, were launched against it daily.  Usually about 200 a day.  But there came a day when over 2100 grenades and bombs hit the homes, schools, churches, and playgrounds of Loslava!  Eventually they had to give up and they were all conscripted into the Serbian army to fight against their own people.

David and Valarija waiting to meet us.

They showed us photos of when they were able to return home in 1997.  There was nothing! Weeds were high as rooftops might have been.  Broken trees and limbs were strewn around.  The house was gone and the wood that had built it had been taken, probably for firewood.  Everything of value was obviously the first things to be taken away.  Valerija was able to take very little with her when she evacuated and then took only things that could easily be sold for money to live on.  They have three sons and her eldest was born while in Osijek.  After the failed attempt to save the village and his conscription, David made his way to join her.

But the village was revitalized under the Communist rule.  Like most Communist things everything was equal.  In this case every house was built by the government and identical in style, color, landscaping, and furnishings.  Some people never returned and those properties remain empty.  It hasn’t really been that long and perhaps a family member will reclaim it in the future.  

David and Valerija took full advantage of the opportunity to make their home their own again. She has the ideas and he has the skills.  They are still working on the house and it is lovely.  Their personalities show through.  It is a pretty place and nicely painted and decorated inside.  Outside the garden in front and back are, to me, a sign of hope.  Hope that life will be good, that war will cease, and that this will be their forever home!  David has time to work on the house because he is on a military disability program.  This also increases their income.  Together they also make and sell pretty hand painted bottles of Slivovitz! Those are for the tourists but the larger quantities for anyone who doesn’t have plum trees in their backyard!   Their children are in high school, in the free university, and the eldest is getting married next year. 

It was a delightful but all too speedy visit.

 

The back garden.

 

The front garden.

 

About university.  In Croatia as in some of the other places we visited there is, indeed, free university for the best and the brightest.  If the scores of their high school transcripts, combined with the required state tests, plus the score of their one self-selected specialty test are high enough it is free for as far as they wish to advance, all the way through a doctorate – if the grades are maintained.  If not then there is a sliding scale of payment.  When, as a grandmother of a brilliant grandson who is paying some $60K for a year of college I hear this plan, it sounds good to me. 

The most a student can pay is 2000 Euros. There are not usually dormitories or food plans so that has to be provided as well.  But, the catch is, that the income taxes are high, in most places 40% or more.   Even though they have insurance, free education at every other level, it can be hard to save that much money for a year.  VAT tax on every item you buy including food is 27%.  Average take home, after tax, is 450 Euros a month.  Then there is rent, food, auto if you are lucky, gasoline, and all the other stuff you want! I ask if you are able to save four months of your salary to pay for your child’s education.  

There is another problem involved.  Once the child has gained their degree, and in the case of doctors, finished their residency, they look to leave the country and go to higher paying jobs.  Germany, especially, is a goal.  Their doctors are the highest paid in Europe and there is a medical shortage.  The salaries are as much as 8 times higher than in Croatia.  This is true of many different professions.  The free education is causing a population and a brain drain from the Balkans.  Young people are not staying home and if they are they can’t really afford to have children.  We heard a similar story in Uruguay a few months ago.  Get married, get a dog, and travel when you can.  The young people are not concerned about the survival of their homeland.

After we were collected from the home visit we toured Osijek.  In this largest city in Eastern Croatia, not far from where we had our overnight visit a couple weeks ago, there is a university.  It is one of the largest in Croatia and has recently acquired some abandoned Communist buildings and an old military base which have been converted to dormitories.  The base’s facilities have become a large stadium and gymnasium.

At the old fort, which still has about 100 families living in the houses, we visited a beautiful Catholic church and Franciscan monastery.  Here a young lady gave us a voice recital and like all of these students, she was well prepared and gave a very nice performance. In the yard of the monastery there were the remains of the Roman fortress that was originally here.  There were two unique statues.  A cross made of bullets, grenades and armaments and a memorial to the Holocaust.  The six figures resting on a broken Star of David represent Jews of Croatia and the some 6 million slaughtered from all of Europe during the Holocaust.

 

It used to be needed to connect the monestery with additional housing but now there are not enough monks to need it so one side is rental property wich helps to fund the facility.

The prettiest and best kept house within the fort.

A simple side altar.

The pulpit is accessed by a hidden staircase which can be reached also from behind the painting.

Our student prepares to begin her program.

Croatian Flag with its distinctive checkerboard emblem.

Note the broken Star of David that the pilgrims stand upon.  Small stones have filled it in the Jewish cemetery tradition.

Roman outlines!

It was a most interesting day.

Back on board there was a lot of talk about our visits.  Since we had all met different peo0ple the stories were different but the theme was the same.  This country has not yet recovered from the brutal control of Communism.  The people remain cautious.  I think that in some ways this affects their everyday interactions with ordinary people.  Strangers are never to be trusted and perhaps even your friends will turn against you.  It is a very isolating philosophy and I have noticed it many times over that past few weeks.

Our dinner was, as always delicious.  The entertainment was better than I had expected.  Our resident pianist gave his Elvis impersonation.  Seems you can never cruise, even on the river, without one!  He was good though and the lounge was packed as people clapped, sang, and danced along!