Travels in Serbia and Kosovo

[anglomedved]

We are just back from a week travelling around Serbia and Kosovo. I had had a conference there (about Mount Athos), it was our 10th wedding anniversary, and there are lots of frescoed churches there which Irina wanted to see. So off we went from Belgrade in a brand new Fiat rental car.

I am already finding it difficult to distinguish the photos from the different monasteries and their frescoed churches that we visited - Ravanica, Ljubostanj, Kalenic, Zica, Studenica, Djurdeni Stupovi, Sopocani, Milesevo, Crna Reka, Gracanica, Decani. Yes, some of them were very good. The former royal monastery of Decani (Kosovo) was magnificent.

Decani. A functioning Orthodox monastery, under KFOR protection, in Muslim

Truth to tell, I was more interested in the quality of the monastic life than of the frescoes.  I warmed to Decani (male), Crna Reka (male) and Ljubostini (female). Decani, once we got past the Italian KFOR guard, was very welcoming: I sense also that, as a key Serbian cultural monument in what is now totally Muslim area, it was important for them to be. Crna Reka (which we learned about from a waiter in the local hotel) I fell in love with. It seems that half the Serbian episcopate started there, but that now they are having a hard time keeping novices. It is not a place for creature comforts, but you sense an uninterrupted tradition of prayer. The old nuns at Ljubostinj were sweet. In a couple of places, which I will not mention, the smartness of the buildings or number of tourists (an Orthodox monastery is physically more open than a Catholic one) cannot be beneficial to monastic life.

Crna Reka. I rather lost my heart to this little monastery

Once clear of Belgrade I loved the countryside, particularly the rich farmland in the West Morava valley. I was surprised at the large size and apparent good repair of the buildings there, which together with the quality of the roads (in good repair but with lots of patches), suggested a wealthy peasant economy.  Many of the roads follow river valleys, and are quite twisty, and you can be stuck for several kilometres behind a truck belching diesel fumes at 40 kph.

We hit the Christian/Muslim boundary in south-west Serbia, well before the border with Kosovo. While I try to be open-minded, there is something about a minaret, when new and in white concrete and almost certainly funded from elsewhere, that I find ugly and provocative.

Kosovo did not enthuse. We drove through Pristina. From what I saw on the ground and have heard and read, this is an artificial economy, primed with foreign money, out of all proportion to the country’s natural wealth (farming and manufacturing).

Other than attractive monasteries and beautiful scenery Serbia has little else to offer. Belgrade does not impress, what architecture there is is imitation rather than original.

Me at Ljubostinj. The church dress was useful in making contact

We liked the people we met, apart from a couple of hoteliers and one taxi driver who tried to get the better of us. Do not book hotels in advance on the internet: they are expensive traps. The church people we met, priest, monastics and lay, generally impressed us. I liked their free and easy – in the right way – manner, generally a sign of spiritual maturity. I am tempted to go again, but then to stay for several days in monasteries.