9 December 2009 – Lost in Central Europe

This week I am at our village house in Stara Moravica, a Hungarian village in Serbia. Well, it is actually in Vojvodina, which many feel may not really be in Serbia at all but lost somewhere in Central Europe. It was once Hungary and a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 918. Our village found itself suddenly cast off and stranded in the Balkans. After the fall of Communism, the dismemberment of Yugoslavia and the enlargement of the European Union, Stara Moravica still exists much as it always has, proudly but not entirely happily. It is still stranded. Culturally it is Central Europe but there is a dreary border with Hungary and an unpopular tax regime in Belgrade and prices keep going up. But, there is good news. In 2 weeks time Serbian passport holders can at last travel into “Europe” without the indignity of queueing up and paying a ransom for a visa. For 90 days there is freedom to roam around in “the West” shopping, sight seeing, visiting relatives. For the Roma, who are by nature itinerant and always about to go somewhere else, a whole new universe is opening up. They are lining up already to cross; or at least those who have managed to obtain the necessary new passports are waiting for the off. They will travel and trade and look for jobs. Some will join the prominent begging communities in tourist centres like Paris and Rome, others perhaps will disappear into the grey economy.

A year ago I was unable to get any of my neighbours or Serbian friends to show much interest in the economic crisis. The Credit Crunch had not registered and no one could imagine how it could affect a society that had hardly begun to enjoy the fruits of easily available credit. But things are a bit different now. Inevitably the effects find their way down to the bottom in the shape of lost jobs, rising prices and diminished purses. A small state owned factory in the village laid off its 30 workers; it didn't pay them much, but that was all there was to buy bread and fuel and trainers. The wood working factory that makes furniture for export hasn't paid its workers for a couple of months we were told; but they are advertising for more workers. The Serbian privatisation programme, part of that transition to a market economy, has been badly hit by the loss of credit. Once workers in state owned companies went to work to wait for rescue, now many just wait for the layoff.

It is not the best month of the year to be cheerful about the economy, and cold rain and mud only add to the sombre hunched appearance. It is easy to hear a catalogue of woes. There is a continually replicating Serbian joke that goes “How do you know you are a Serb?”, “Because you are 40 and still living at home!” and many similar reasons! But some souls never give up. Our friend Eta has a part time job, runs a large vegetable garden, sells produce, makes pasta and testa and comes and nurtures our flowers when we are not there. She never stops, but her sons have no work and see little reason for hope. Without the dignity of work life is very cruel. I topped up my mobile this morning and watched the girl record it in a notebook; all the top-ups bar one were for 100 Dinara (less than a pound). I also went to the woodyard to give them my water meter reading. “Which do you need? My name or my address?” I asked; “I know who you are!” she said with my overdue account already up on the screen. But outside my friends with the waiting carts seemed as resilient to the turbulence of global economic fortunes as they were to the cold rain. One was waiting for the blacksmith to come back and finish off shoeing his grey stallion. Without ceremony he lifted up the big grey's leg while the other pared down the hoof and nailed on the new shoe.

Not good weather for birding. But when there was a glimmer of sun I heard the wild call of cranes overhead. A flock flew north, who knows where? My argumentative neighbours, the dapper Tree sparrows are busy gathering spilled meal and goose down, flying from yard to eave or collecting in dense hawk-proof thickets to gossip. The “Village woodpecker”, otherwise known as the Syrian woodpecker, is in and out of the garden and enjoying making yet another hole in our apple tree. A goshawk soared up and circled in the sun while the collared doves hid in the trees and clung to roofs. The Little owl called at dusk still preferring an empty factory roof to my bespoke owl box in the walnut. The unrecognized centre of our universe is a village with its well dug soil, wood smoke and its modest well-loved homes.