Emma Fick: Serbia Through Illustrations

2015-01-19T00:10:00+01:00

Emma Fick is a young American whose family originates from the Balkans. She is currently based in Belgrade, where she is on a cultural exchange program. Why do we find Emma so interesting? It is because she developed her own manner of speaking about travel - through illustration, regardless of the general opinion that such stories can only be told using words or photos. This time, we present you her insight into Serbia.

For more interesting illustrations visit Emma's website: www.emmafick.com.

Kalmyk Community in Belgrade

2019-09-22T18:54:16+02:00

The description of the life of a social group that disintegrated decades ago and then disappeared almost without a trace is linked, no doubt, to particularly complex problems of a methodological and methodical nature. Namely, only partial reconstruction is possible, which is all the more difficult because of the modest or even non-existent primary sources (informants, archival documents, data in the press) and which relies primarily on oral traditions in the memory of external observers (1). The subjectivity of such interpretations can only be partially corrected by the use of comparative literature referring in our case to the Kalmyk culture in imperial Russia, in the Soviet Union, and in emigration. Comparative literature also helps us to bridge the gaps in the basic information network.

For the ethnological profession, the Belgrade settlement of Kalmyks, a West Mongolian people from the Volga River's lower reaches, is interesting as an example of a small community in the cosmopolitan metropolitan area, as a contribution to the ethnological appearance of Belgrade and, finally, as a fragment of Kalmyk history in emigration.

Most Kalmyks came to Yugoslavia in December 1920 with a group of 22,000 soldiers, accompanied by family members. This is the part of the Wrangl and Denikin units that were evacuated from Crimea before the penetration of the Red Army and transported to special camps near Constantinople, from where they dispersed across various European and overseas countries. There were many Don and Cuban Cossacks in this army with whom the Kalmyks lived mixed or in a close neighborhood (for example, some Cossacks adopted from the Kalmyks the Lamaistic form of Buddhism) (2). During the Russian Revolution and the Civil War, the Kalmyks, under the leadership of Russian and Cossack officers, established two regiments, the 80th Don Dzungar and the 3rd Don Kalmyk Regiment, and parts of Kalmyk cavalry were also located on the other side of the front line, in the Red Army units.

Some Kalmyks arrived in Yugoslavia in 1922, when the last anti-Bolshevik units had to withdraw from Vladivostok.

The majority of Russian immigrants in Yugoslavia lived in Belgrade. Among them were many aristocracy members, landowners, contractors, clerks, and officers; people of farmers’ origin were relatively numerous, and very few were representatives of the proletariat (3).

The fact is that, after settling in Belgrade and other European cities, poverty forced many immigrants to accept difficult physical jobs and turn into some sort of proletariat; however, they still retained "the cultural-spiritual interests and needs of their former social strata" (4).

Buddhist temple in Mali Mokri Lug, Belgrade – the look of the altar in different periods.

Taking all this into consideration, the group of Kalmyk refugees, upon their arrival in Belgrade, represented the poorest class of Russian immigrants, both in material and socio-educational terms. Josip Suchy, who visited the Belgrade settlement of Kalmyks in 1932, noted that they were engaged in transportation, employed in factories and engaged in traditional local crafts as well as agriculture. There were almost no intellectuals among them, with the exception of doctors and two students at the Belgrade University (at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and the Department of Philosophy) (5). For this reason, the book by Belgrade-based Kalmyk, Dr. Erenzhen Hara-Davan, on Genghis Khan and his successors, published in Belgrade in Russian in 1929 (6), was a remarkable achievement. The work is entitled "A Cultural and Historical Description of the Mongol Empire from the 12th to the 14th Century" and is dedicated to the 700th anniversary of Genghis Khan's death. The author described the beginnings and expansion of the Mongolian state, and paid special attention to the Mongolian occupation of Russia and the Balkans and argued that it brought a number of positive consequences. The book aroused interest in international professional circles, and the author prepared a lecture on "Genghis and Mongolian penetration into Europe" (January 7, 1928) at the University of Belgrade (7).

In the first years after the Kalmyk settlement in Belgrade, an effort was made to adapt to the new environment, which was partly facilitated by the fact that all Kalmyk settlers, in addition to their Kalmyk language, also knew Russian, and thus learned Serbian faster. Those who originated in the northern foothills of the Caucasus also knew the Circassian language.

A Kalmyk leader, a Lamaist Buddhist priest, shortly after the arrival of a group of fugitives in the Yugoslav capital, asked Belgrade-based industrialist Milos Jacimovic to allow them to work at his brick mill in Mali Mokri Lug. He employed them and gave them land next to his facility. From the brick they received for free in the factory, they built 20 to 30 single-story houses and moved into them from the rented houses where they used to live. Each house was shared by two or three Kalmyk families. The living conditions were modest. Beside the houses were gardens, a common well and a common toilet. Not only those Kalmyks who worked in the brick factory, but also some of their relatives, settled in these houses.

Most Kalmyks in the beginning worked on the exctraction of clay and on its transportation to the brickyard. Over time, some of them bought themselves horses and started their own businesses; they also worked in wood, coal and similar industries. Some of them became coach drivers. Thus, in the new environment they continued the tradition of horse breeding, which they practiced on their native Don grasslands. They also did some home-made crafts.

The man was the head of the family. The Kalmyk women in Belgrade did not look for jobs, but contributed to the family budget by making slippers and fur jackets that they sold at the market (8).

The men first wore Russian military uniforms upon arrival to Belgrade (9) and later simple civilian suits that made them no different from Serbs in the surrounding area. The geographical location on the outskirts of the workers' settlement of Mali Mokri Lug proves that Belgrade's Kalmyk colony was a completely marginal community in socio-economic terms. With the gradual improvement of the economic position of individual families, their living needs increased. Thus, in the early 1930s, many Kalmyk children continued to high school education (10).

The Kalmyk community was quite closed to the outside world, linked within by their common language and origins, by the common fate of the immigrants, and by their affiliation with the Buddhist religious community. Contacts with the wider environment and Kalmyks living abroad were rare. Only the Kalmyk priests maintained links with their countrymen living in Paris, from which high religious dignitaries who occasionally participated in rituals occasionally came. They were not politically active. Although the Soviets proclaimed an amnesty for war refugees (1923), and the Kalmyk Society for Return to Homeland, headed by Bosan Kushlinov, did some propaganda, they did not choose to return to the Soviet Union.

They began to associate more freely with the Serb farmers of Mali Mokri Lug (who only knew them by the name "Chinese"). There were several mixed marriages between Serbs and Kalmyks. Kalmyk children were playing with their neighbors’ Serbian children. They also had a football pitch, the so-called "Chinese playground". They attended elementary school together.

"There have been several mixed marriages." From the Politika's photo archive.

The Kalmyk religion was Buddhism (Lamaism) with additions of Mongolian shamanism, with a pantheon of native pre-Buddhist deities and cults of historical figures (Genghis Khan, and also the imperial dynasty of the Romanovs). In 1932, there were a total of 300 Kalmyk immigrants in Belgrade, plus a few who lived in the vicinity of Pancevo, in the village of Debeljaca and in Gornji Milanovac (11). The custom of solidarity prevailed among the members of the community, which was reflected in the provision of mutual assistance and also in attending religious ceremonies and controbuting to the Kalmyk Lamaist temple.

In 1924, the high priest baksha (12) Manchu Birinov, asked and obtained official permission to arrange a tentative Buddhist shrine in a rented apartment in Mali Mokri Lug. It was a modest space, covered with carpets and decorated with several symbolic figures, with a bronze figure of the Enlightened in the background (13). Baksha Borinov, dressed in a dark blue priest's uniform, head covered with a round, gold embroidered cap, was the chief adviser to his countrymen in all life's decisions, visiting them at work and encouraging diligence and patience (14). In November 1929, the Kalmyks built a pagoda-shaped brick sanctuary, a hurul, on a piece of land donated to them by Milos Jacimovic. They built it themselves, collecting voluntary contributions (one of the donors was Princess Jelena, sister of King Alexander), and some funds were provided by the municipality. During the period between the two world wars it was the only Kalmyk sanctuary in Europe, outside the Soviet Union. At the consecration, in December 1929, the high priest, baksha Namdzlo Nimbusov of Paris and the Belgrade baksha Sango Umaldinov were present together with two gelongs (15). On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the shrine, a solemn ceremony was held in the premises in honor of the benefactor Milos Jacimovic. On this occasion, the Kalmyks presented him with a thank-you note written in a beautiful script, which his grandson later donated to the Belgrade City Museum. After the ceremony, the guests were offered tea and cakes in the next room. When Jacimovic died in 1940, Kalmyks also attended his funeral ceremony.

The tradition of wooden buildings was present in the architecture of the Kalmyk temples, and since the late 18th century they were also built of brick and stone. The main temple usually had a large central room with a vaulted tower, richly decorated with carvings, murals, paintings and bronze sculptures (16). The Kalmyks had their religious center near Astrakhan (Kalmyk Bazaar), in today’s Russia. This is where the Great Llama lived before the October Revolution. The wooden building of the main shrine in the area had an interior decorated with silk paintings (17). In addition to the larger permanent temples, they also had mobile smaller shrines in their yurts (18).

Compared to the temple compounds usually built by the Mongols and Kalmyks, the Belgrade Buddhist temple was small and modest. It was built in the form of a pagoda with three slightly upturned roof edges (one of the basic types of Mongolian shrines, where Chinese architectural influence is seen). It was standing in a fenced yard, surrounded by fruit trees. Next to the shrine was an added building with rooms for priests and a classroom where Kalmyk, Russian and Serbian languages were taught.

Classroom at the Kalmyk Buddhist Temple in Belgrade. The title reads: "A school that works once a week, has two subjects, and doesn't punish students for skipping classes".

From the roof corners of the Belgrade pagoda hung metal bells (protection from demons) that chimed in the wind. A lamaistic symbol was attached to the top of the roof – the vajra. (19) Above the front door, on the front of the building, was a Buddhist symbol: two gazelles and between them, on a lotus flower, a wheel of Buddha's teaching with eight parts. There was only one window on the ground floor, and four openings on each of the two upper floors.

Vajra is a Buddhist symbol of a lightning strike, invincible truths or absolutes, an attribute of Tibetan deities, and a ritual object during Lamaist rites.

The Kalmyks apparently brought the sanctuary equipment with them from Russia. Across from the entrance, in the lodge, was an altar on which, in addition to two Buddha statues, there were religious objects and relics, and beneath them were bowls of sacrificial gifts. To the left of the altar, in front of the windows, were two low tables, seats for two Lamaist monks and shelves for storing religious texts. On the walls were traditional religious paintings, tankas, and photographs of religious dignitaries. The floor was made of ordinary wooden boards, covered with cheap, factory-made carpets. The high ceiling was supported by four wooden, vividly painted pillars with Buddhist symbols (the wheel of Buddha's teaching, a lotus flower, etc.). Buddhist flags (white, red, yellow, blue, green) hung from the ceiling.

On the tables of both priests were laid out lamaistic ritual objects: rosary with 54 beads, ochira (double vajra), cymbals, sacred records in Tibetan, a rope for contact between the believers and the priests, a bowl with various grains and seeds, a bowl with water, a bowl with a peacock feather (boom pa), incense and scents.

Buddhist temple in Belgrade, exterior and interior. Photo by Dr. H. Klar.

A brief but valuable description of the interior of the sanctuary was published by Josip Suchy during his visit to the Belgrade Kalmyks in 1932. His report shows that the equipment has been somewhat modified and supplemented over time.

"There is a pleasant shade in the Buddhist temple. The windows are covered with beautiful curtains so that it is quite dark in the sanctuary. From the ceiling hangs an electric light bulb and a large glass ball. In the middle of the temple, against the wall, is an altar on which the Buddha himself sits in an oriental manner. Above him, two Buddhist saints reign, the first of whom is a former Buddhist chief, called the Bakshama Lama. On the altar are gifts from Buddhist believers. Just today (mid-July) they celebrated with a great feast and the believers bestowed on Buddha what they could in their misery. Some of them rice, others sweets and cakes... I also saw a ten-dinar coin on the altar... There are pictures of other high priests and prophets of the Buddhist faith hanging on the sides. On the right side of the altar there are mattresses on which gelong sits during a religious rite lasting at least three to four hours. "(20)

Buddhist temple in Belgrade - the interior. From the Politika's photo archive.

Suchy also took a photo of the exterior of the shrine. During the major holidays, the Kalmyks of Belgrade set up a table in the sanctuary's garden, covered it with donated food and beverages, drank tea mixed with butter, milk and salt, and feasted on horse meat, according to some reports. In the new environment, some holiday customs were lost or altered. For example, of the three traditional men's competitions: running, archery and wrestling - only the last one was preserved.

Lamaist priests who lived in celibacy and obeyed the other commandments of monastic life were the undisputed leaders of the Kalmyk settlement in Belgrade. And otherwise they enjoyed a greater reputation than people who lived a worldly life. Most Kalmyk lamas were descended from pastoral families, and only the highest lamas usually belonged to the aristocracy. They knew the language of the scriptures – Tibetan and Old Mongolian, and were proficient in Tibetan medicine and astrology. As members of the gelugp sect, they recognized as their highest religious leader the Tibetan Dalai Lama. In him they saw the incarnation of the bodhisattva of Avalokiteshvara.

The Kalmyk clergy supervised the life of each family and participated in all aspects of their lives (for example, the gelong chose names for babies, determined the wedding day, treated the sick, performed funeral rites) (21). This also applied to the Kalmyk colony in Belgrade.

Believers attended Lamaist rites for several hours, expecting spiritual purification and "salvation" in the next reincarnations. It was about the well-being of the visitor as well as the whole community. In addition to the daily service, their religious calendar also included significant dates from the Buddha's life, such as the Full Moon Feast, the New Moon Feast, the Tibetan New Year, and others (22).

During World War II, some Kalmyks of Belgrade left and became German soldiers on the Eastern Front. The Germans promised to establish a "free Kalmyk state" somewhere in the occupied territory of the Soviet Union. They also urged civilian expatriates to organize their own government.

Kalmyk Buddhist Temple in Belgrade, now inexistent.

In the fierce fighting for the liberation of Belgrade, which took place in the immediate vicinity of Mali Mokri Lug from October 12 to 16, 1944, the upper part of the tower of the Kalmyk shrine was partially destroyed. Even before that, a part of Kalmyk community had gone to Germany, and after German defeat they were deployed to camps run by US charities. Thus, with a group of Kalmyks, the Belgrade's high priest (baksh) Umaldinov and his associates, Helonzi Menjkov and Ignatov, also arrived to Germany. They probably brought with them the interior equipment of the Belgrade temple. Baksh Umaldinov, who was already an old man, died in 1946 in Krumbach, Bavaria. Those Kalmyks who remained in Yugoslavia were mostly deported to the Soviet Union after the war (and subsequently to Siberia, where the Kalmyks from the Soviet Union had been deported in 1943). (23). The Kalmyk colony in Belgrade thus completely disappeared.

Other tenants have moved into the houses on what used to be Buddhist Street, later called Budva Street. In 1948 the tower of the temple was demolished, and the building was transformed into a Cultural Center, where meetings, dances and weddings were organized. Later, in that same building, the local municipality had its premises, and then it was taken over and partly renovated by the company Buducnost (Future), to be used as their refrigeration facility.

Kalmyk refugees (800 people, including some of the Belgrade Kalmyks) lived in detention camps near Munich until the winter of 1951-1952, when 200-250 Kalmyk families moved to the United States under the patronage of the US Church World Service and The Tolstoy Foundation (in total around 650 people). They were later joined by their countrymen from France, so in 1980 the Kalmyk community in the USA numbered about 300 families, with approximately 900 people. They were settled mainly in the US states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey (24).

—

Retrieved from: Traditiones, Acta Institutes Ethnographic Slovenorum, iss. 17, 1988. Published in Journal of Culture of the East no. 25, YU ISSN 0352-4019, July-September 1990. Translated from Slovenian to Serbo-Croatian by Tatjana Latinović. English translation: The Travel Club.

—

Footnotes:

1. Among the informants, we are most grateful to Mara Stevanovic, Lomina 57, Belgrade.
2. Helmut von Glasenapp, Der Buddhismus in Indien und im Fernen Osten, Berlin-Zurich 1935, p. 347.
3. Nikolai Fedorov, "Russian Emigration", Croatian Review, 1939, no. 7-8, pp. 373. Aleksije Jelacic, "Russian Emigration in Yugoslavia", New Europe, 1930, no. 4, p. 242.
4. N. Fedorov, n.d., p. 372.
5. Joseph Suchy, "Visiting Buddhists," Morning, 1932, no. 1971, p. 5.
6. Dr. Eugene Hara-Davan, Chingis-Han as a Commander and His Inheritance, Author's Edition, Belgrade 1929, ch. i: Irena Griekat-Radulović, "Kalmici in Belgrade", Politika September 13, 1985, p. 12.
7. They included the book in their bibliography e.g. Ralph Fox (Gengis Khan, Hamburg-Paris-Bologna 1936) and Reinhold Neumann Hodizz (Dschingis Khan, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1985).
8. Slavoljub Kacarevic, Where did the "Chinese Pagoda" disappear?, Politika, September 8, 1985, p. 12.
9. Zeitschrift fur Buddhismus 1924/25, Munich 1925, no. 2, p. 388.
10. Suchy, at nav. site.
11. Ibid.
12. Baksa - Senior Lama, "Faith Master", who helps people with advice.
13. Gl. whop. 9.
14. Right there.
15. Belgrade Guide, Belgrade, 1920. Gelong (Tibet. DGe-slong) - an ordained monk, who completed a 12-year education under the guidance of an elder Lamaist monk.
16. The Bolshevik Soviet Encyclopedia, Vol. 11, Moscow, 1973 (3rd ed., Pp. 223-224).
17. Glasenapp, n.d. p. 347.
18. Drawing of the Kalmyk Shrine in the Yurt, by R. Karutz, Die Volker Nord - und Mittel - Asiens, Stuttgart, 1925, p. 69.
19. Vajra (Tibet. RDo-rje) - symbol of lightning, invincible truth or absolute. The attribute of Tibetan deities and ritual object during Lamaist rites.
20. Suchy, at nav. site.
21. Kalmici, c. Naroy of Peace, Peoples of the European Honor of the USSR II, Moscow, 1964, p. 745.
22. Giuseppe Tucci.Walther Heissig, Die religionen Tibets und der Mongolei, Die Religionen der Menschheit, Bd. 20, Stuttgart-Berlin-Cologne-Mainz 1970, p. 166-167.
23. Koldong Sodnom, The Destiny of the Don Kalmyks, Them Very Clergy, Author's Edition, USA 1984, p. 150.
24. Arash Bormashinov, Kalmyks, v. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, Harvard University Press, Cambridge and London 1980, p. 599.

Kosovo buses

2012-04-10T21:19:29+02:00

Squeak, squeak. My shoes were still completely wet. At least the snow had stopped. I crossed a small traffic circle and saw a bridge in the distance. With barricades on it. Let’s try that way anyway. Closer to the bridge, the street was completely deserted. There were only Carabinieri, loudly laughing at something.

Tegel, Wings

2022-11-21T11:38:21+01:00

The first time I traveled the 125 kilometers, it was cold, it was October and there was a fair, and I went unprepared, so I dragged Les Miserables and Lost Illusions in my arms to the Temple, which I had never seen live before. I didn't like the broken slab in front, neither the wind, nor the Sava river, it was muddy. I liked the bell and the width of the streets and I wanted to come again because I didn't recognize anyone on the street, although two people tried to pickpocket me when I was getting on the tram. When I traveled back the 125 kilometers again, I was cold because the wind was blowing through me. Mother said: that's what you get when you don't wear a thick jacket. Dad said: how many people were there? Mom added: now she's going to get pneumonia. Grandma said: books collect dust and you suffocate in your room. Grandpa said: that's how I went to Poland during Tito's time and brought back a carpet and a crystal chandelier. And I read about Cromwell and looked at the pictures, how nice it is there and how many people love books and how cultured they all are, and only occasionally they say to each other: go fuck yourself and your gypsy mother.

The second time I traveled the 125 kilometers was when I was going to apply for school, and Johnny said: maybe we screwed up. We left the papers in a large hall full of beautiful pictures in wooden and golden frames and Johnny said: now we have committed ourselves, we have nowhere else to go, and I was chewing the plastic spoon from the cappuccino and looking at the bronze horse. When I went back 125 kilometers and saw the cross, I knew that I would read Plato and Euripides all summer and fantasize, fantasize, how nice it is to go to a hall with big columns and a city with a bronze horseman, where everyone reads Sappho and smells of lilacs. Mom said: books wont put bread on the table. Dad said: your life, your business. Grandma said: you should have studied to be a dental technician like Aunt Bilja. Grandpa said: I was a test driver at Zastava, and later the director of the department. And I was making a list, copying the syllabi and practicing writing essays.

The third time I traveled the 125 kilometers my hands were shaking. There were about forty of us sitting in the classroom, a sledgehammer was pounding at the building next door, the benches were scratched and then scrubbed, the wooden flooor was worn out and we were sweating under our armpits. Johnny said: My essay is crap. I said: mine is crap too, perhaps nothing will come of this. Johnny's uncle took us back and we sat in a tavern, ate lokum, drank coffee and talked about whether I fucked up Balzac more than Johnny fucked up Camus, the atmosphere was gloomy and we ate nothing but lokum because in my mind I was walking the streets of Paris looking for my mistakes, while Johnny was thinking about Algeria. When I got home, I told everyone: I should have become a dental technician, I should have worked in a factory and become the director of the car parts department, I should have smuggled carpets and chandeliers from Poland, and everyone was silent and didn't want to say anything. Sister said: everything is gonna be okay. And I couldn't sleep, I was giving myself points, subtracting, calling Johnny to drink beer and plan what would happen if we stayed. We both fantasized about a home 125 kilometers away and a worn-out wooden floor. I was at Grandma and Grandpa's house and Grandma said: look how thin you are, you should eat soup. Grandpa said: what if you become autistic? The phone rang twice, Johnny said: we passed bro, we weren't the worst after all. And I couldn't accept that my crappy essay was enough, but I knew I was going to live in a city with broken granite slabs and the wind and the muddy Sava and I was glad and I decided I was never going to give my aunt a call. Mom and Dad were proud.

The fourth time we traveled the 125 kilometers together, and mom and dad cried as they watched me bring Tolstoy and Joyce into the new apartment. Mom said: look how shabby the curtains are. Dad said: you are now an academic citizen, you have to keep your back straight and not slouch like that. Johnny was waiting for me and we went in together. The professors smelled of cigarettes and told us: you did not come here to become writers, although you are elite and you will remain elite because no one but you will read Aeschylus and Brecht in this country and no one but you will know the poetics of structuralism. And in the first class at the new school, I didn't know thirty words and I secretly wrote them down on paper so that the girl next to me wouldn't see, intertextuality, mutatis mutandis, discursive, solipsism, dialectical materialism, postcolonial, topos, pirandello (which I later changed to Pirandello). I was both glad and sad because I left all those places behind, Jovanovac, Korman, Botunje, Žirovnica, Batočina, Lapovo, Markovac, Staro Selo, Velika Plana, Krnjevo, Mihajlovac, Vrbovac, Malo Orašje, Umčare and Mali Požarevac and I decided to learn all those words quickly.

And then I traveled the 250 kilometers 103 more times because the years passed.

First I learned what hypertext and somnabulism and commedia dell arte are. I went up to high galleries in beautiful halls and went down to dark cellars where beer cost 400 dinars, but I didn't care because it was life and I was counting how much I had left for bagel and instant soup. It was more and more difficult to count fences and haystacks, billboards and toll booths, and I was reading books on the bus, and it wasn't easy because the floating letters made me sick. Grandpa used to say: My aunt Leposava lived 105 years and she didn’t know how to sign her name, she used her index finger instead. Grandma said: One of my cousins studied the Serbian Language and now works in a boutique. Mom sent jam, bought quilts on installments and criticized me when I wore black. And dad didn't stop being proud, but just in case he asked: did you pay the utilities?

Later I learned what dichotomy is and the difference between the transcendent and the transcendental, and Mom would say: you are slouching again. Dad didn't speak very much because the work was going badly and Sister said: I can't stay here. Grandma asked: can you get a job with the government? Grandpa said: at the age of 15, your father knew how to take out the whole engine, take it apart and put it back together again. I was silent because I couldn't speak in complicated words, and I felt guilty that I wasn't enjoying being back. Johnny understood because he too loved Bakhtin and hated the bus.

Before I came back for the 74th time, I walked around the city, and my big city with wide streets seemed small and my grandma had seen me on television. Grandpa said: In Tito's time, they were not even allowed to even think of that. Grandma said: I just hope Koviljka wont see it. Dad said: We technically support them. Mom got angry and then she didn't want to talk to me for almost three weeks. After that, we never brought up that topic again.

What did I talk about when I was back? Again and again I would talk about exams (always technical details), about assistant professors and fees. I would talk about the state of the city, the decline of the city (which Dad always enjoyed), and then Grandpa would add his impressions about the good management of the city, Dad would shout that Grandpa was a loser and that he should be banned from voting, after which he would go around the house slamming doors and cursing the nineties, and Grandma would say: Grandpa always had a Party membership card, I celebrated our Patron Saint even when it was forbidden and he was hiding, the coward. And Grandpa would demonstratively put on his hat and go to drink beer in front of the store. I tried to talk with Mom about things in general, although not always successfully, partly because of my excesses, partly because of the fact that she didn't like how I dressed (not feminine enough), how I spoke (speak normally!) and what I ate (eat some real food for a change). In addition to this, she constantly liked to believe that I might be in a relationship with Johnny and chose what I should wear when I went out. The dynamics of the conversation with my mother always followed the same series of steps: 1) an argument 2) intense smoking of cigarettes at the window (her) 3) hyperventilating in the upstairs room and breathing into a bag (me). Although she sent me jars every month with the same persistence.

When I returned to the starting point for the 90th time, and told everyone that I was not done with school and the professors who smell of cigarettes, Grandma said: it is a sin to make a spinster of yourself. Grandpa showed me the wedding ring in which he and Grandma had engraved the wedding date, and then he added that he got married at the age of 32, which he regrets now and thinks was selfish because he had children late. Mom sighed and said: whatever. And Dad said: son, your life is your business.

That year I learned the meaning of performativity and angel in the home. Before the end of the school year, the women stood among the tall pillars and mustachioed statues and politely taught us how important a girl's own room is. What do they teach in that school, Grandpa said to Grandma next time he showed me the wedding ring, and I said that I didn't believe in marriage. Grandma patiently tried to explain to me how nice it is to have a man and then added: if you don't want a man, at least give birth to a child, like Aunt Zaga. Mom added: or give birth to a retard at forty, and went to the terrace, and Dad did not comment.

Before I come home for the 100th time, I sat with Johnny and he said: write to me and send photos. Our hands didn't shake anymore, but we were still sweating under our armpits because we were afraid, but secretly. And later I announced that from now on I will fly when I return and everyone was worried, except Sister who was happy and said that she would collect money for the ticket. Everyone came to wave to me before I sat for the first hour and fifty minutes and look at the sky through a small window. I thought it was better for a fly to get stuck in the sheet metal of a bus, because if it gets stuck in Drača it has a chance to free itself before Grošnica, though it might tear off one of its wings and stay like that forever, and if it gets stuck in the sheet metal of an airplane, it will surely die. How many flies died while I traveled the 25,750 kilometers in the Kragujekspres bus with greasy windows, while fences and gas stations idly stood by? Grandma made me some cheese pie, then she blew her nose and said she was only sorry that the house was falling apart and she wished me luck, Grandpa told me that he had also flown once, to Poland and back, and Dad and Mom hugged me and cried and they said: call me when you land, and I told Sister: collect the money quickly. When I landed in a city that was divided and then put together, I felt a little better because I was also divided, and being divided is hard, like when you fly with one wing and you always just pretend to have put yourself together, and I lifted the phone to give them a call.

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Emma Fick: Serbia Through Illustrations

Kalmyk Community in Belgrade

Kosovo buses

Tegel, Wings