The Balkans are a strange place. It is a corner of the world that somehow always manages to be the centre of attention. It is a peninsula in Southeastern Europe which is so small that you can pee over it, and yet, if you set off along its rutted broad roads, it would take you five days on horseback. Maybe these contrasts at short distances that take long to cover are the ones that shaped the contrasting characters of people living in these parts.
Serbia is a country people are leaving from. Here, cosmopolitans were long ago identified with traitors, gentlemen with the hen-pecked, the intelligent with nerds, the aspiring with the conceited. Then extreme nationalists, sexists, stupid ones and scumbags were given space to call themselves patriots, and the state became too narrow for the broad-minded, stifling for the generous, dark for seers. It is sad when there comes a day when your hunger outweighs your love of your homeland, when the draught blowing through your wallet opens your house door and your passport turns into a one-way ticket.
