In 1990, when Yugoslavia was still Yugoslavia, I stopped for a day or two in Zagreb. At the time, I was trying to get as far as possible on my soon to expire rail pass. While there, I remember talking with a merchant about his hopes for the future, and his dreams for the country. He was a separatist, and wanted his own country, away from the dictatorial edicts laid down by Belgrade. To me, this was not much different from the separatist sentiments that I had heard from the Quebecois in my own country, Canada, and I thought nothing more of it. If I had known what was going to happen, I would have stayed in Yugoslavia to see it before the impending civil war.
Instead, I met two Australians who were headed to Turkey and invited me to come with them. With only two days left on my rail pass, I could either spend the remaining time in Yugoslavia, or take a very long and painful train ride to Turkey. Rather than head to Dubrovnik, I decided to go south to Turkey with the Aussies. We checked the Thomas Cook train schedule, and found a route that would take about 36 hours. There was a train that passed through Zagreb, and continued all the way to Thessaloniki in Greece. From there, we could catch another train to Istanbul.
That evening, after gorging ourselves on roast chicken and ice cream, we waited for the train. It was half an hour late, and packed when it arrived at the station. With no reservations, we shuffled from car to car, looking for empty seats. One compartment had two empty seats, which we agreed the Australians should take. I could more easily find a single seat for myself than find seats for all three of us. A few compartments away, there was a single seat available.
In that compartment were several young Yugoslavian men, and an American girl fresh out of university. This was a recipe for disaster, but the American seemed blissfully unaware of the impending doom that was about to strike her.
Everything started out well enough. I tried chatting with the Yugoslavians. One of them spoke some English, and said that he was on his way south to see his girlfriend. However, the rest of them spoke limited English and meaningful conversation soon petered out into that uncomfortable silence that occurs when you have much to say, but do not know how to say it. On the other seat, the American was getting lots of attention from the other Yugoslavians.
Matters started getting heavier as the night went on. The atmosphere saturated with testosterone as the Yugoslavians started vying for her favour. One serenaded the American, while another started snuggling up against her. I could only watch in disbelief as the American smiled at the attention.
It got ugly when the lights in the compartment went out. Many attempts were made to woo the American, but she responded with evil looks and swift kicks to the groin. It was impossible for anyone to sleep, as an assault on the American would occur whenever things got quiet. This continued for the rest of the night.
At Skopje, the southerners got off. Suddenly, the train compartment was empty, and we could get some rest. When I woke again, I looked out the window to see marble pillars half emerging from the side of the hill. The ruins quickly passed out of sight in the morning sun. To this day, I have no idea whether it was an archeological dig, or just a pleasant hallucination.
The last Yugoslavian got off soon after. He apologized for the behaviour of his countrymen, calling them savages. Too tired to do anything else, we slept until the border. The Australians came by later, and seemed quite surprised. They had no trouble in their compartment, and slept about as well as you can on a train.
If the people on the train were any indication, it was not surprising to see why Yugoslavia splintered after the death of Tito. There was quite a difference between the southerners from Skopje and the northerner from Zagreb. Without a common enemy to inflict misery on them, the different ethnic groups soon found enough differences to splinter the country.
As for rating Yugoslavia, it is hard to make any real judgments, and somewhat moot, because it does not really exist anymore. My experience was also pretty limited, as I only spent two days there, and that was mostly in Zagreb. What can be said was that the ice cream was very good, but there was not that much to see. In a place where inflation was so bad that you needed to cover four zeros to get the value of the currency, it really would not be wise to estimate costs. That being said, for the days that I was there, it was about the same price as the cheaper European countries.
Text and images copyright © by Curtis Marr. All rights reserved.