We stayed at the beautiful old family property in Kolarić once before, in 2019. During that visit Ljubo’s mom, Ana, was convalescing in the hospital so we did not meet her. But we met his dad, a quiet but kind man, who just died at age 90 a few months ago. Ljubo and his mom are still grieving and missing him.
During that first visit Ljubo’s uncle, Djordje, was visiting from Prague. The two of them showed us all around the area. Djordje now has some cognitive decline and is living back in Belgrade. We stayed with him there a few years ago but have not seen him since. Ljubo is not in touch with him very often because of disagreements they had in recent years about the land in Kolarić.
Ljubo moved from Belgrade to Germany (then Austria) several years ago with hopes of finding more lucrative work, but last year moved back to Kolarić to take care of both parents. He did not want to put them in a facility, and finding live-in help was nearly impossible. He had hired people to come in to help during the day (paying 2000 euros a month) and he came home twice a month to help but decided it would be better to live there with them. Luckily he found a temporary job in Vojnić nearby. He was hired as a translator by the Turkish company that is installing a natural gas pipeline from Slovenia to Serbia, but his job has morphed into much more. He is a project manager of sorts.
In the past Ljubo has worried he might need to sell the property after both parents die, but now he is doing some renovations with the hope that he will be able to stay there. There is not much to do socially there but he has learned that he feels so much better being there than in a city. If he wanted to sell the property he’d be lucky to get 80,000€. It is worth much more than that to him.
When we arrived in the early afternoon the first thing we noticed when nearing the house was the huge brown scar on the hillside behind the house. A gas pipeline is being built from Slovenia to Serbia and the route goes right across the family property. It made me sad to see. Oddly the gas for this line will come from the U.S., shipped to a Croatian island then piped to Serbia from there. Ljubo later told us the digging had been done improperly- instead of preserving the topsoil by setting it aside before digging deeper, the top soil now lies buried 5 meters under heavy clay. The company is required to remediate but Ljubo said that won’t happen, and that stretch of land won’t be able to grow anything.
Ljubo greeted us, not exactly warmly, but kindly. He is a very serious and reserved man in his early-mid 40’s. I have seen him smile, but not often. He takes his responsibilities for his family and the property very seriously and has given up a lot in order to take care of them and the property for many years. But I think he was glad to see us. I hope so.
He sat us down at the big dining table in the main room, which, like I have said, is the focal point in many or most homes. We greeted his mom who was dressed in black and said next to nothing but did look us directly in the eyes and smiled slightly. I don’t know how much of her silence is related to grieving her husband, but when I asked Ljubo about it he confirmed she never talks much. He said it takes a lot of pulling to get her to speak. When she does speak her voice is very quiet. I wonder if she was this way when Ljubo was growing up. I know the death of her first son at a very young age has had a lasting impact on her. While Jim, Ljubo and I sat at the table, Ana sat on the couch. Initially I tried talking with her using my simple Serbian and Google Translate. I showed her some photos. She looked with apparent interest but gave no feedback other than making eye contact, and sometimes a very slight smile. Ljubo did not translate our conversations for her. Either he knows she couldn’t follow it or it didn’t occur to him that she might want to hear. It was a little odd. He never gave any explanation.
A neighbor came and she and Ana cooked a nice lunch of soup, meats, whipped potatoes, beets, bread, cabbage, pickles, and a cake for dessert. Delicious. But Ana and the woman did not eat with us.
Despite the rain Ljubo drove us to the Petrovna Gora monument (to WW2 Partisans) we had visited before. It’s a sad site, made gloomier by the drizzle and fog. The once impressive interesting tall sculpturesque building has been extensively damaged and looted by Croatians after the 90s war. So sad. But every year the Serbs from the region meet on the grounds and have a celebration.
We then stopped at a former ‘hunters’ lodge that is now a restaurant. Djordje and Ljubo took us there during our last visit. We had beverages and the traditional crepe-like pancakes (palačinke), with jam. When we got home we sat around the table and enjoyed more good conversation about history, the government, family, his job and the property. I was surprised to hear that he attends the local Orthodox Church. In the past he did not. Ljubo was frank about the toll caring for his parents has taken on him, and his sadness about his dad’s last week of life. He wonders if he could have done more to prolong his dad’s life.
He said that even now many Serbs living in Croatia do not feel welcome even though generations of their families have lived there. He said the Croatian government sways many Serbs into getting Croatian I.D. cards which grant them benefits that those with Serb identities can’t enjoy. He has not succumbed. Serbs in Croatia can vote in the Croatian elections but must choose whether to vote for the mainstream parties or they can vote for the Serb minority candidates.
We wanted Ljubo to have some down time for himself so we said good night and went upstairs to our room at the back of the house. It is a fairly large house, rebuilt after the 90s war (when it had been burned down, after being rebuilt after WW2 when it also had been burned) by the Croatian government, but not built to the standards the family wanted. Before he died Ljubo’s dad asked him to promise to take care of certain issues with the house. Ljubo is doing some renovations for this reason.
Most Serbs never came back to their land after fleeing in the 90s. Ljubo’s family fled to Belgrade and lived with relatives. But his parents did not adjust to city life and moved back to the property twelve years later. Others in the area that also returned and rebuilt their lives have all aged and died or moved away except for Ljubo’s family and one neighbor who we met.
It was a rainy evening and as sometimes happens when they get rain or snow the power went off at around midnight and stayed off until about 11 the next morning. Ljubo said the power line path was not cut correctly- not enough space between the wires and the forest trees whose branches hand only a few feet from the wires. So often branches fall on the wires and cause power outages.
I enjoyed the darkness (heard some owls) but slept poorly and woke with my neck and head hurting more than usual. When we went downstairs Ljubo prepared a nice breakfast of fried eggs, dried meats, bread, cheese, and kajmak. Ljubo drank ‘white coffee’, his favorite since he was young. It consists of a small amount of coffee, a large amount of milk, and chunks of bread tossed in. I guess it’s sort of like liquid tiramisu but without the chocolate.
After breakfast Ljubo took us on a walk to see the rest of the property, something we had not seen before. Skies were clear and sunny but the dirt road was muddy when we walked over the heavy clay over the pipeline. When we got to his neighbor’s farm Ljubo stopped to chat with the man and his son from Germany who came to help with Ljubo’s house project. The father raises various animals, including horses that Ljubo allows to graze on his land to keep some of it from turning back into forest. In the past the land was used to grow corn. Much of the land that used to be farmed is grown over with shrubs and trees. It’s a beautiful very large property (we walked and walked on the winding dirt road, surprised when Ljubo kept saying we were still on their land), and we heard resigned sadness in Ljubo’s voice when he talked about how the land and village used to be. There are some hunting blinds on the land where hunters primarily shoot wild pigs. But wolves and wild dogs also roam there.
I asked Ljubo how his parents met. He said things were different then, and that his dad was told Ana would make a good wife for him. He walked to her village, having never met her before, and proposed. I had a hard time grasping the difference between Ljubo’s parent’s lives and my two oldest sisters’ lives, being only 2-3 years younger than Ana. When Ana was getting married to a man she had only just met, living in a farming village a world away, tending crops, cooking with wood, collecting water from the spring, my sisters were doing what teenage girls in suburban America did at the time- driving around in their friends’ cool cars, going to proms, wearing make-up, doing their hair, applying to colleges, listening to rock and roll… wow. Such different worlds.
On our way back to the house we stopped and talked with Ljubo’s neighbor again. He showed us his still where he was just about to start making rakija. He makes a lot, of several types. Ljubo reiterated what he had said a few years ago- that legally the villagers must get approval for which trees they can cut on their own land, and must take their pigs to an approved butcher rather than butcher their own meat. But luckily nobody checks up on them much so they ignore these laws as much as possible.
Once back at the house Ljubo pulled out a box of photos taken in the 70s of various family members. Many of the photos were of his older brother, Djordje, who died in a tractor accident when he was very young. Ljubo rues the fact that they don’t have any older family pictures. When they fled during the war they could not take much with them, nor did they have any idea they would be gone so long or that they would return to a burned house. He said his uncle has some photos in Belgrade but he is not sure what he has. He really wants to find a photo of his grandpa so he can make a framed image of his great grandpa, grandpa, dad and himself, but so far has been unable to find a photo of his grandfather.
Before we parted I asked if I could take a photo of Ana. Ljubo said of course, but when he translated my request she shook her head. Ljubo was surprised and was unsure why she said no.
Meanwhile…throughout our brief stay in Kolarić Jim’s cough increased and he was slowly feeling worse. Luckily he didn’t cough too often and when he needed to he tried to go to the bathroom. But we both felt very bad that we could be exposing Ljubo and his mom to whatever Jim was fighting. After we left I checked in with Ljubo a couple times and as if a week after our visit they both were still ok. But we felt very bad that our presence put them at risk. Had we known Jim’s virus was more than a very mild cold we simply would not have visited.
We took a few selfies with Ljubo before we left, then headed to Zagreb to prepare for our flight home two days later. As we entered Zagreb Google Maps failed to register that the route it told us to take was closed because a marathon was in process. The only reason this was a problem was that once again I really needed to pee! I was so glad when we finally made it to our apartment!
lunch; Ljubo’s dad; dogs Lola and Lord (they live outside but are treated well)
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