Pazi Pas: on Dogs

We were rather saddened to hear that the dog belonging to our neighbors on Krk had died. It actually went along with the death of the old goatherd, who had been looking after the old, blind, wheezing dog. Not to worry, opined one of the other villagers, the dog was really old, “maybe six or seven”. In a way, that about sums it up for dogs in the Balkans, and I guess much of southern Europe: a dog does very well if it makes it to six. This shocks the likes of me: my first dog lived to 13 (hobbling, deaf, blind, epileptic, no bladder control, constant visits to the vet in the last years) and my sisters two dogs just died a few months ago aged about 14 (blind, deaf, wheezing and living only for their daily carrot), my other sister has a dog that thrives aged about 9 and going strong(ish).

So we have a dog, as readers will know. And I must admit that now that we have a baby, she is less of a princess than she was, but she still: lives in the house, very often sleeps on our bed, eats only dog food, regularly goes to the doctor, has a passport, travels with us most everywhere, and is generally part of the family. To pacify both G. and her family, we bought a dog house for outside, and I went along at least vaguely with intentions to have her live outside, but I just couldn’t do it: making a seen week old puppy live outside in February just didn't gel. I don’t think I’m so unusual in that I love my dog like a family member, and indeed most Germans, British, Americans, Canadians, Swiss, etc. would heartily agree. Perhaps on farms, people would be a bit less coochie-coo about the animals, but on the whole, people where I come from and where I live behave similarly. Germany, on the whole, is extreme: dogs can more or less go everywhere – we’ve found only one or two restaurants in Germany that don’t allow them – and I’ve heard it said that people are often more welcoming of dogs than children, which is an exaggeration, but not a very gross one.

This is, however, clearly not the case in Serbia, or elsewhere in southern Europe, for that matter. I had, for a time, a relationship with a Spanish woman, and she mentioned one day in passing that she had “dogs” at home. “Oh”, I said, “what are their names?” She gave me a strange look, and said that they didn’t really have names, or that we called them this or that, but it didn’t matter, they were just dogs. Same kind of thing in Serbia: vague memories of dogs one had as a child, inconsistent names, not trained, and “umm…. I can’t remember what happened to him; he ran away, I think”. Of course people love their dogs, but somehow the relationships are most distant: they seem to be only rarely allowed in the house, and even people with flats often condemn (cruelly I think) dogs to live on some tiny balcony.

G’s mother is convinced that our dog caries terrible
germs, and when visiting tells us 2-3 times daily that the dog hair (abundant in the house when she sheds) will be terrible for the baby. I must admit she has a point: their dog regularly walks unattended around the neighborhood and smells like a tramp’s underpants, because she has almost never had a bath, and regularly eats garbage only after she has rolled in it. I wouldn’t let that feral animal anywhere near our baby. In contrast, I believe our dog, who is virtually never unsupervised, to be a lot cleaner than many people I know.


Croatia, though similar in attitude, seems however to be on the turn, at least on the coast. There seem to be a lot more dog-friendly people, and the general trend that they are banned from public places seems to be over-turning. As recently as last spring, one could see harsh warnings that all dogs must be on a leash and muzzled at all times in public, but I haven’t seen so many this summer. Not surprising, I guess, as a large fraction of the tourists are (of course) Germans, and think that if little Maxi-schen can’t come with us, we won’t spend anything.

Perhaps, in any case, G's mother is on the turn too. During a recent visit to Germany we caught her sitting on our sofa with the dog at her feet ("they were cold"), and she spent three days babysitting our daughter alone on Krk and was seemingly very appreciative of Monitsa's amazing instinct to guard the baby and all associated with her.

Numb to the Ex-Yugo experience

My brother-in-law has a new girlfriend. Unlike his last, this one is not naša, or rather, not Serbian. This one is German, and thus, like myself, a foreigner. We met her the other weekend and she seems very nice, but I experienced an alarming sense of irritation at just how enthusiastic she was about Serbia and Serbian (textbook tucked eagerly under her arm). Obviously it’s new love, and with it comes a healthy helping of blind enthusiasm about the new partner and where he's from, so I readily forgive her for this. But I was alarmed by my reaction. For me Serbia – together with Serbian, Croatia, Croatian, the former Yugoslavia, the Balkans, burek, Šlivovica, bad homemade wine served in Knjaz Miloš bottles, Nationalism, typical Balkan men, dangerous driving, the smell of the air in Novi Sad, typical Balkan behavior – are now so ingrained in my life as to be like something between a rather pleasant recurring dream and an untreatable genetic disease.

I had all of that, everything. I had that feeling of first-love with a native from the former Yugoslavia too. I bought every language book there was, and I’m proud to say that I definitely function in this language, if a little clumsily. And not just language books either: a recent survey of my book collection revealed no fewer than twenty books about the history of the place (e.g. Black Lamb, Grey Falcon), or novels by ex-Yugo authors (e.g. Ivo Andrić). I certainly know the lands, or more specifically, I know a lot about Novi Sad, that part of Vojvodina, and Krk in Croatia and its surrounds, where we have a house, and bits about most everywhere else. I know that Serbs don't normally want to go to Split, and that Croats should probably avoid places like Novi Pazar. I know the people as well: warts and all.

But I’ve certainly lost my original sense of mystique about the people and the place: both impress about as often as they disappoint, or in other words, they are normal. I still have, obviously, an emotional attachment to the place, but somehow it is more like a sympathetic cousin than a new friend: the relationship (and by this of course I mean to the place, not to my dear G.) is a bit forced, but not unpleasant.

P.S. Apologies for the long silence. Our daughter M.T. was born in June and time has become a precious commodity. Blog about Balkan Baby Balderdash to come.

Krk diary 2009 Number 1: Y-tong and Krk village culture

Well, our house is almost there. As ever with construction, people are telling you that it will be “about two weeks” for about (say) three months, and costs escalate and what have you, but we saw it yesterday, and the view from what will be the terrace is fantastic – Cres and the blue Adriatic in the distance, just over or through our little Olive grove. It is heaven.

Well, sort of. At least the old Yugo (ca. 1978) is no longer sitting without tires in the property next door, there seem to be fewer wild dogs and children running around than before. Sadly, we heard that the funny old guy who used to walk shirtless and smoking with his flock of twenty goats met his maker a few months ago (we don’t know what became of the goats), which is disappointing for our dog, but she’ll survive.

And maybe I’m just getting used to it, but the gastarbeiter houses look a bit less thrown together. This is something one gets used to in this part of the world. Those who left home 20-30 years ago, worked usually in Germany or Austria, and then returned home, bearing a big Mercedes Benz, a wide-screen TV and enough money to build the dream house. The problem is they normally build it themselves, and often the gastarbeiter (i.e. Guest worker in German) mentality doesn’t go along with a good sense of the aesthetic. Big, modern box-like constructions are favored – I guess because they are easiest, and provide the most room for the whole family, plus a complement of paying guests to bolster the retirement income.

Anyway, in our tiny Krk village, there are fewer houses like this, and indeed many signs of a kind of Western European gentrification: more tastefully renovated old houses (including ours I would like to think), and fewer cinder block monstrosities; tidier rubbish bins, and even better roads. Though the village lacks running water (apparently in a year or two), but now has DSL internet. I’ve got mixed feelings about all of this, I suppose. On the one hand, I think that it will be nicer to live in the village as it is becoming, but on the other, I feel we’ve somehow contributed to the destruction of this little way of life: what was once a village of Krk old-timers and refugees is now a village of well-off former Croatian ex-pats, Austrians, Slovenians and ourselves. I think we and the others really are restoring some kind of traditional Kvarner look-and-feel to the place, but perhaps we lose something more than Y-tong and bad-brickwork in the process. Ah, progress.