View Larger Map
Saturday, September 21st – Dubrovnik
My first duty today, once breakfast is done, is to visit the phone centre to pay for yesterday’s call. It is another perfect Mediterranean day as I walk through this fantastic walled city. My hosts live right in the walled city itself, with its marble streets and restricted access for cars. A English-language brochure I picked up at the tourism office yesterday says 4,500 of Dubrovnik’s 50,000 people live inside the walls.The phone centre is open and the same cashier is working there. I apologize to her for running out without paying last night, relating to her how distraught I was, and she was very understanding. She had reason to believe me now that I had returned to pay.
I know I am still in danger here. There was a smaller cruiser that was blocking the harbour the first day of the coastal siege, and it has not returned so there is an illusion of safety. Dubrovnik was demilitarized in 1970 to that it would never be a military target again, but Bosnia is right behind the hills above Dubrovnik, only 8 km away, and Montenegro is only 25 km south of here. Both are still provinces of Yugoslavia and if there is going to be a land invasion the city is quite vulnerable to attack. The walled city was the one of the first World Heritage Sites designated by UNESCO but it is naïve to think that that consideration will quell the hatred of the Serbs. Common sense says I should head into Montenegro today, but I want to spend a day photographing the city in case it is destroyed.
The walled city in built on a headland that forms a small inner harbour. The rest of the city is built around it to the north and up the side of a mountain the slopes up from the coast. The city was historically known as Ragusa and was an economically influential trade centre in competition with Venice in the 15th and 16th centuries. It changed its name in 1918, when it became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. There is nothing in ruins in the walled city, which dates from Ragusa’s heyday. The narrow, worn marble streets glisten like milky water. It has the oldest arboretum in the world, over 500 years old, and a working pharmacy that has been in existence continuously since 1317. The City state’s official language was Latin until 1472.
While the facts are impressive, just walking around inside and outside the walls is even more so. George Bernard Shaw referred to it as ‘Heaven on Earth’, and I see why. It is small, charming, beautiful and steeped in culture. But today it is somber, bordering on sad, as they prepare for war. Teams of men, working in quiet solidarity, are unloading planks from trucks and setting up scaffolding to erect boardings to protect the facades of historic buildings. Windows and statues are also being covered and entrance ways are being sandbagged.
Throughout all of these preparations, music is playing in the cafes and stores. The same three songs play over and over again. Every well-known Croatian singer participates in each to build a sense of unity, like the famine relief song by the supergroup Band-Aid seven years ago: “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The songs are “O
Croatia”, “Stop the War In Croatia” and one other with a Croatian title. The first two are sung in English. At first they feel appropriate for the mood of the day, my mood as well as most others I suspect, but as the day wears on they become too depressing.
I leave the walled city to get away from them. I walk first along the inner harbour and then climb through the streets to the top of the city on the mountainside to get a better view of the walling city and the surrounding lands. This place is so wonderful and peaceful – for now. At the start of my trip, it was one of ten places I wanted most to see, and I am not disappointed. I hope with all my heart the war does not come here. 
I walk down the hill, check out the arboretum and return to the walled city. As the sun sets, the street lights come on. There is no blackout or curfew here. There are still some other tourists in town, probably those who have come by boat, and the street cafes in the walled city are still open. I have my dinner at one of them.
My mind is still on Frenk, Irena and Bojan and I feel so helpless when I think about them. I want to pray, but I don’t believe in prayer. If there is an all-seeing God who needs to be worshipped before he intervenes to stop suffering, there is something terribly wrong and potentially evil about Him. If you don’t worship Him, does he intentionally punish you like an egotistical sadist? Since most violence is justified by religion, the thought of participating in that scam to give myself a false sense of security or false reassurance that prayer makes a difference, sickens me. It is an affront to true intelligence and altruism.
There is nothing I can do here. Even taking photographs of the what might be destroyed feels wrong, like I am making a presumption or suggestion that might then come true. I must leave tomorrow and cross into what is still Yugoslavia before it does worsen, before I manifest something much worse than what is already happening. The only thing worse than leaving Paradise is sticking around to watch it be destroyed.
I pack my bags and ready myself for an early departure tomorrow.
PHOTO 1: deserted marble streets of Dubrovnik
PHOTO 2: child on a street in the walled city
PHOTO 3: main square inside the walls
PHOTO 4: boarding up statue and facade of City Hall
PHOTO 5: team of men boarding up a facade
PHOTO 6: sandbagging entrance ways
PHOTO 7: more boardings
PHOTO 8: nuns at the abbey
PHOTO 9: entrance to the walled city from the north
PHOTO 10: the walls at the north end
PHOTO 11: the inner harbour
PHOTO 12: view of walled city from across the inner harbour
PHOTO 13: view of the headland from the top of the city
PHOTO 14: another shot of the walls on the north side
PHOTO 15: the ancient arboretum
No comments:
Post a Comment