Imagine...

Terrace with a sea view....roof...all details preserved...some timber floors...and thats it.

Now, continue imagining...

Vuno.

– Lejla Hadzic

A lifetime ago I was here. Is it the same place? Could the new Old Bridge be the same one as the one before? Even if it’s not, it is good that is here. Bridge to the future, which is leading to the most amazing craft shops. Where traditional Turkish coffee will never lose its fantastic smell of hospitality and good atmosphere. And while I am walking around the old Mostar, a song in my head keeps on going, “Kafu mi, draga, ispeci”, or bake me a coffee, dear.

–        Zivota Lazarevic

There is a place that appeals to me the most. It changes its faces every time a wind blows. It can be cruel, it can be calming, powerful, shining, exciting, stunning... hot as hell and sunny, but it can rain for days and then an atmosphere grows mouldy. It is a place where no one wins, neither the sea nor the high mountains.

Venetians were there, Napoleon’s troops, Russians, Turks, South Slavs... different regimes in different times.

The great poet lived there and now lies at a peak he did not pick. He, as a scenery, had a lot of profiles. Fragile and pitiless, lonesome and occupied. On the mountain that shelters the bay, he learned that life is fragile. And so did his landsmen who were less remembered, but equally vigor.

Even though there was a bishop, he erected cathedral none. Since it is impossible not to see a mighty god scattered over every glimpse, each rock and look, on these high mountains that cover the bay.

To live there, were rocks are sucking out the water and hide it deep from its surface, where every step might ache, where goats and cows are still valued as wealth, demands strength and humbleness. Nevertheless, poet’s countrymen considered impunity to be a necessity. Ambition to survive was spelled in their genes. They knew how to be ordinary, gentle and polite, but at the same time they had clutches of thoughts, in good accordance with their poetic way of speech.

Undeterred by uncertainty of hard life, there always was softness and patience. There always was awareness of communion and common good. Assistance and love, brought to these small group of people by the very mighty god that hides in each karst and stone.

And love. Love that was passed on to children and children’s children, and their children too. Love that was gave to me. With all other values. Of course there are silent fears that cause stomach pain too, probably created on that unfriendly rocky soil. Without love though, there would be no beauty and no laughter. No understanding, no cuddling, no sincere affections. No listening and no endurance. There would be no families that stick together even when those family members live spread out the continent. There would be no Sunday lunches at my grandparent’s place, cheerful summers with my brother and cousins, there would be no bond that connects me and this hostile sensational place that I admire and adore. I feel gratefulness and love that I have to pass on, and on and on, until it reaches stars that ones the poet knew how to talk to. Maybe even from the peak he did not pick.

– Milica Tanasijevic

I like to walk and explore things that I might already know in Novi Sad, a town that I live in. This place is still finding ways to suprise me and give me sparks to be be in love with every day beauty.

– Ivana Volic

A small village called Ranilovici on mountain Kosmaj is a rescue place for my family. We are escaping here when summers get unbearably hot in the city. We go here to spend evenings next to fireplace when winters are gray in Belgrade.

My children and my brother’s kids are enjoying freedom of a village life here. They are one of the rear youngsters who sensed smell of hey and cattle, who know how to catch firefly in a jar. They saw a birth of a baby calf and a lamb. They are running across meadows of my great-grandfather’s youth. Here, they are learning values that, unfortunately, are not that common among their kinder garden and school friends.

Not only that our everyday life is richer because of this lovely village, but our heritage is here too. I carry wonderful memories from my childhood, my father too, and it goes on further to past generations. My great-grandfather was cultivating silk-warms that can only survive on mulberry leaves. There are still many mulberry trees around our family house, and my sun adores eating their fruits. Behind the house there is a trough carved out of one piece of stone, my great-great-grandfather’s hand work. It amazes me every time I look at it.

A life wouldn’t be the same without time spent here.

Ranilovici is the place I like.

–       Jelica Vasic

Mirror Mirror on the Wall, am I the Fairest of Them All?

Once a week, I pass right by this Door. But this time I saw them: The 1906s Art Nouveau Door of Josef Sabetaja Finci's house.

For the last two years, I have been taking photos of doors in Sarajevo, but these are the most captivating ones. All the buildings in the spirit of the secessionist art in Sarajevo have distinctive decorative facades, with the floral motifs beneath the roof cornices, around the windows and doors. However, this Door is the only thing decorating the exterior of Finci's house.

Floral motifs, in the most beautiful manner grace this Door, especially parts of the wrought iron. What makes this Door the Fairest of Them All, is the dynamic floral motifs of laurel leafs and berries carved in the wood. No other door in Sarajevo has the wooden floral relief like this one.

– Lejla Kahrovic Handzic

It is nice when the fog hides everything and unveils the detail, then slowly by its disappearance I fall all over again in love with beatyful Boka Bay.

–        Iva Petkovic

In the complex of the Clinical Center of Vojvodina there is a small green wooden house not easy to spot. It used to be a home to Dr  Adolf Hempt and is one of the few remaining copies of the typical houses designed for health care and built all over Europe after the WWI. In this particular building serums and vaccines were made which citizens of Novi Sad received.

– Ivana Volic

Prizren is not only what is seen with eyes wide open. To understand Prizren accurately, two eyes are not enough.

Prizren is not only beautiful houses with distinguished aesthetic features, but above all pleasant talks during sunsets with regular guests in courtyards or inside rooms embellished for pleasure-seeking.

Prizren is not only paving that shines with elegance whenever it rains, but above all the history written on it. Cobble stones of Prizren are a documentary that tells stories of the city with all the joys of suffering, war and peace, solidarities and insincerities.

Prizren is not only in masterpieces of architecture, churches and mosques, but above all in communication among people of different religions. As school of emancipation, as control of patriarchate, as tolerance and love, as discrimination and hatred... Prizren is not only in imperfections of Albanian and Turkish, but most of all in ability of its inhabitants to talk in four different languages during the same day.

Prizren is not only river that divides it, but above all narratives constructed in centuries to think about freshness of the water that flows through all town’s houses. Prizren also is an urban legend that was made up to frighten children not to urinate in the river.

Prizren is no idyll or a nightmare, is neither paradise nor hell. It is not only greed nor generosity... Prizren is just Prizren. And it is difficult to see it only with eyes wide open.

To read the text in Albanian click here

–        Hajrulla Ceku

There is nothing as exciting, dear and secure as the coast of my childhood. Time spent on the island Pag probably formed me into a person I am today. That is a reason why from all the places I have been at, I treasure Pag as a special one - a place of freedom. I remember hours spent in endless games on the beach. Back then there was still a source of drinking water on the beach, and for me the greatest joy was to come out of the sea and pour a glass of cold fresh water and drink it. Nowadays I realize what a precious thing that spring was. Children that are playing on the same spot today cannot share the same experience because the spring is not the same anymore. Nevertheless, with all the tradition, nature, architecture and heritage, Pag is a speculate island. To me, there is nothing like a feeling when I sit on the same send I sat down 35 years ago and all emotions from all those years just overwhelm me, in September, when sun is still warm and there is no one on the beach where a clean spring was.

 – Dean