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AJLG's avatar

I lived in Tivat for a couple of years. I used to go to Herceg Novi to sort out my visas. That was 2018/19. It’s definitely way different down there to the rest of Europe. As you say most of the jobs are in tourism and low paid. I did hear the sentiment quite a bit that things were better under Tito. There were industrial jobs, the government paid towards your apartment, you drove around in your Yugo and things were generally ‘better’. Obviously these were the locals reflections and not mine but I took them at face value.

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epimetheus's avatar

I also heard these sentiments, albeit mostly from people long after the end of Yugoslavia and who had moved to other places, such as Austria, the US, etc.

Another place with virtually the same history would be Pag in Croatia: there were fishing and ship-building industries, several thousand inhabitants--and after 1990, all of that went away; the place is nu inhabited by a few hundred people, mostly seniors, in summer it's drowning in tourists and there's nothing else to do.

It's also the same in bigger cities, and I recall a meeting at NYU in 2018 when I remarked on that during a panel discussion (MOMA ran an exhibition of Socialist-Realist Architecture in Tito's Yugoslavia)--and it triggered virtually all other attendees from that region…

Some things appear to have been 'better', such as less inequality as well as more stable and secure employment, but I think all of it is shrouded in post-1990 experiences. God knows how accurate any of these recollections are…

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Irena's avatar

I think the sentiment that life was better in Yugoslavia is quite wide-spread. Why do you doubt it?

I was curious: what were the beaches in Montenegro like? See, my memories of the Montenegrin coast are from the 1990s, when we started going there on vacations (from Serbia), because travelling to Croatia was impossible. Well, those are some pretty negative memories: beaches covered with litter, sewage draining into the sea. Water poisoning was a common complaint. I wonder if things are any better now.

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epimetheus's avatar

Oh, I don't doubt the sentiment.

As to your question about Boka kotorska, it looked fine: as far as I could tell, beaches and water were quite clean, with little garbage littered around. There's all the problems with mass tourism, no doubt about it (I would like to know where all the food waste from the all-inclusive, all-you-can-eat buffets is going), incl. cruise ships coming into the bay virtually all day. As far as I can tell, the water fountain in the hotel I was staying offered 'purified' water…

As to your question if things are any better now, I'd go for--mixed bag of things, I suppose.

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ExcessDeathsAU's avatar

I like your daughter's art very much. I would definitely prefer to see it when I am out rather than the usual ca-ca adorning the brutalist-modernist demoralisation passing for architecture where I live.

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epimetheus's avatar

Well put, sir. It's also the negation of the beauty being in the eye of the beholder (as regards contemporary art™ and architecture™).

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Eva's avatar

It’s really interesting to get an updated travel log, thank you. Interesting and yet somewhat depressing, not the beautiful places and local people, more the increase in charges and awkwardness of travels.

And I admit to sometimes genuinely envying the head-in-sand’ers…

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epimetheus's avatar

Well, as to your comment pertaining to the ostriches among us, that thought crosses my mind every now and then--and then I'm out on my farm once more, pondering 'other' things.

I suppose being an ostrich merely makes for a much ruder awakening eventually.

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