Few days ago I entered Riga… the freshest crisis-hit capital of Europe. Dozens of ducks with their bright green feathers in one of main squares of city made me smile. Also blue Christmas lights in another central park. As average Latvian person before Christmas, of course, I entered one of the biggest shopping malls. It was full of people. People standing in queues near cash-machines, in bookshops and household shops offering wide range of cheap Christmas staff. Everyone looking stylish and beautiful. I started to feel pressure to improve my appearance with something that would demonstrate my success and welfare. It is always nice when others look at you with acknowledgment and appraisal. People in Latvia are a kind of obsessed with need to express their material welfare. Still… I stayed strong and did not succumb to temptation to buy one more thing. And another one… and more… although prices were cheap and offer great. I prefer simple life of Macedonia where almost everyone has nothing, where people drive old cars and old bicycles and put their energy in something else than obtaining new and new fashionable staff. Our celebrity magazines devoting six pages to describe wardrobe of some society girls, their Gucci and Versace made me just wonder: what the fuck people are you doing and what are you living for?
With some fear I visited “Pelmeni” – place offering traditional Latvian/Russian food for low price. Price was still good. Expenses for a meal were pretty much the same as in Macedonia. This gave me a hope. City in Latvia are not so beautiful and decorated than other Christmas. Just shopping centers are in mood of celebration… full with complicated and impressive decorations, with gnomes dancing and singing, and playing games not only with children, but also with adults. I wish they would organize their games outside malls on the streets of city. Where everyone can reach them and everyone can participate… especially those people who the most need positive emotions and fun… those who usually even do not enter in huge and fancy shopping places of the city.
Day after together with some “working class” friends we went to saunas and swimming pools in some SPA hotel at Jurmala. We were drinking champagne. Already second day… After SPA guys putted on suits. I had red dress and green shoes. My best friend was in sexy black, and her socks were black with red roses. I made nice princess’ hairstyle and we went to ball of students’ cooperation. We were looking great among all black dressed corporation guys 
Our friend and member of this organization explained me that I should try to look a kind of aristocratic: not to express too much emotions, not to do strange things, be polite, behave good, dance foxtrot… I was scared till the moment when I realized that some other Latvian girls around us are totally drunk and openly ignoring idea of good manners… I also learned to dance f…king foxtrot, something about Latvian nationalism, I realized that I really like corporation guys, as they all are really gentleman making me feel somewhere between princess and Cinderella. This life is so different from my Macedonian life. I like both. Am I not lucky? A person with not only beautiful life, but with two of them ))
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About Rakija
I really start to believe that rakija has a healing effect… It works better than medicine ))
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in the city without sex
One sunny Saturday evening after hiking and making fun of people having sex on the Vodno in the middle of the day and just next to the main road we were sitting in the restaurant of Panelejemon monastery – we, three girls – Dejana from Macedonia, currently living and working in Russia, Hungarian volunteer Viktorija and me, volunteer from Latvia.
“What can you tell about Russian people?” asked Viktorija.
Me as the person living in country with Russians as almost half of population and Dejana was wondering what to answer her.
“They are the same as Macedonian people,” I told her. “Just more true in relations: saying directly, what they want, how they feel…”
“At first Russians are so cold and unfriendly, but after they will be your best friends”, in another conversation said Antoine, French guy who spend year in Russia.
After seven months in Macedonia I have took over a lot of Macedonian habits and elements of lifestyle. But there is something I could never accept: lying and pretending in love, in any kind of relationships.
Why to tell somebody who is close to you, whom you maybe even love, so much lies? Why to lie about your feelings, attitudes and intentions, if it is so obvious that you are lying? I never met here a guy who could survive a single hour without lying. But is there something more valuable in the relationship than mutual trust? Even if it is just a sex and you both never planned to be together involved in a serious relationship?
Yes, we can call some people, like Russians, for example, as cold. But also coldness is a part of true attitude. Because you know what to expect from this person and he or she knows what to expect from you. And it is much better than being with somebody who is talking and behaving like loving you or wanting to be your friend but who actually never meant it. With somebody who chooses words to be nice and maybe not t hurt you… but in the same time when you believed these words and after realized that it is not true pain is even bigger. Some my friend said that at the end all the guys are the same shit. So why to be a shit instead of making some relations on open and honest basis?
“And girls here are even worse than guys,” said Dejana. “They can lie for years. If they don’t want to be with some guy they will not tell him it openly, as well as they will not tell to him directly, if they want him.” It is like endless game, false communication and false relationship.
It is difficult to understand it, especially if you come from culture where people say directly “I want you” or “I want to have sex with you” and they also will say directly that they don’t want anything. Not saying maybe, not saying that they are busy today and this kind of bullshit.
It is of course so difficult to show your true emotions, thoughts and to discover your true you to somebody else. Maybe you’ll then be hurt, maybe you’ll feel pain. But also brave is a personal trait which we usually respect a lot in the people, especially in the men. Unfortunately almost never they are brave enough to say truth.
Sometimes after the conversation with some guy I’d just like to scream… why are you lying? Because I see so well that you are lying and lying anyhow doesn’t make things better. It doesn’t help to solve problems and it doesn’t improve perceptions of you and attitudes towards you….
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Football and Changes in Life
I’m sitting in the Turist Cafe at Struga and watching football game Netherlands:France with more 14 EVS volunteers, from which most part, of course, are French. If some Macedonian or Albanian came into the cafe they would feel like foreigners here. Most of volunteers besides are able to have five and more minutes long conversations about football. Everybody understands the game, just not me… 
Should I learn more about the football for the purpose of socialization?
We made a bet about result of the game. I putted 6 denars for the France (2:1). Today I am for French, even I still think that there are too much French in Macedonia
… Maybe I will have one more year like this. It is strange, but it is also surprisingly easy to throw away your own life, even if you have before invested so much work and time to build it…
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Како Струга нема Друга
It is great again to be in Struga and to spend here the summer days. Unfortunately it is quite rainy here. Actually it is so cold that some police guy around 14:00 came in the bar where I was drinking cappuchino and ordered two glases of vodka. In his working time and in the uniform. I always knew that Macedonian police is nice. I love these guys
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European thinking? Justice?
One of the themes related to the so called Balkan studies is the exclusion of the Balkan from the rest of the Europe and the marginalization of the region. Although countries like Macedonia, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Albania geographically belongs to the Europe, current EU politic leads to the exclusion of those countries. Just Slovenia and Croatia has managed to get closer (or to join) Europe, and now inhabitants of these countries tend to separate themselves or juxtapose to other Balkan nations…
One of the main conditions that isolates Balkan countries from the rest of Europe is the requirement for visas to travel within Europe. In the union of states where one of the basic principles is the free flow of goods and people, free movement for the people coming from SEE is restricted, more complicated and much more expensive, especially if we consider the much lower income here. I think that we often even do not realize how big value is this our possibility to move freely: without invitation letters, waiting in rows, police checks, planning and waiting for months. It is not really fair to move back some countries in their development by setting restrictions for the free movement. In such situation ideas about united Europe, European values etc. coming from EU propaganda, is just rhetorics without any connection with the reality.
And which are those European values and European citizenship which EU youth programs and activities try to establish now? It seems that Balkan lifestyle, traditions, habits, rules and way of thinking is very far from that what we understand as European way of thinking and living. But is Europe really just Christianity, tolerance and rule of Law? Isn’t really, for example, Islam also a part of the European culture?
In the cities like Skopje there are a lot of signs from the past: buildings evidence about Ottoman times, belonging to Muslim culture, belonging to the orthodox culture; division of the city in the Macedonian and in the Albanian parts tell about unsolved conflicts… and over this all – too much looking back into history. Among the remains of the past in the city there are no signs of the future. After the collapse of the socialism in Europe starting point for Macedonia was pretty much similar to the one of Latvia. But unsolved historical conflicts and looking back in history, etnical problems, perhaps also hundreds of different other factors determined that Macedonia is still stuck there where we were ten years ago.
Who could explain me what is this European society, European culture and future vision of united Europe to which we are moving now? Where are we going actually? Looking at history and not in the future, etnical intolerance and prejudices is not really part of this European culture, but it is a part of the European reality. More visible in Balkan, but existing not only there. Can Balkan countries become a part of the Europe while towns are divided in etnical parts by river lines and thinking is not at all open-minded? And from the other side is it a good idea to try to adjust Balkan nations to the European understanding about values and European way of living? Nobody has proved that it is the best available.
It is strange that current borders of EU are demarcated in the way that still excludes part of the Europe. People outside SEE know this region very bad. Meantime it is still so explosive… people are still holding guns at their houses, pupils at schools believe that their peers are having guns, during the parliamentary elections without any reason armed riots take place and people are wounded and killed. In the same time Greece which belonging to the Europe is acknowledged officially and without any doubt, puts veto for Macedonia’s accession in the NATO, thus leaving the tiny country without protection, although country has filled all requirements and several Macedonian soldiers died last autumn when coming back from the NATO mission in Bosnia. Is this action of Greece also an example of the European thinking and European values?
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