Novisad
is the second largest city in Serbia with 500K people of 27 different
ethnicities, and a University of 50,000. There are five official languages. We
walked the town to Liberty Square with the Bishops resident, the City Hall, and
the Name of Mary Catholic Church which celebrates mass in Croatian and
Hungarian.
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| Church and Bishop's Residence |
In the afternoon we climbed to the Petrovaradin Fortress. A Fortress has existed here for centuries: Roman, Hungarian, Ottoman, and Hapsburg. It is the largest in Europe with 10 miles of tunnels underneath.
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| Petrovaradin Fortress |
Why isn’t Serbia part of the European Union?
All countries negotiate with the EU to become a member, but Serbia has an additional condition: recognition of Kosovo as a country. Slobodan Milošević, ‘the Butcher of the Balkans ruled Serbia during the 90s and committed war crimes against the other ethnic groups. Kosovo is 90% Albanian ethnicity today, yet it was the ‘heart’ of Serbia where the kings were crowned, and the culture was formed. In 1999, NATO bombed Serbia for several weeks until the Serb army retreated from Kosovo.
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| 1999 Bombed bridges below, replacements above |
On October 5th, 2000, the people demanded new elections and a free press by storming the parliament and TV stations. At that time over 70% supported joining the EU. One of the conditions of entry was recognizing the International Court of Justice, which convict 72 Serbians of War crimes versus only 26 of other Yugoslavian nationalities. In 2008, Kosovo declared independence and EU support in Serbia fell to 61%. In 2013, Serbia became an EU candidate, but the EU was distracted by the Syrian refugee crisis, Brexit, and soon Covid. In 2016 support fell to 41% and Putin started investment in Serbia and reminded them of their historic Slavic connections. The current President was Miloševićs minister of Information, won the office in a landslide, and is playing both the EU and Russia. The students are out protesting again 24 years after the year 2000 protests
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