final report from the PGA inspired infotour Post Yugoslavian region March 2008

Submitted by vlanto on Tue, 2008-03-18 12:56.

We started on Sunday march 3 from nis. We traveled by night so we could be
in Zagreb earlier and also to bribe the ticket boy. We were lucky, we
bribed from nish to lapovo, from lapovo to Belgrade and from Belgrade to
shid, it was great, the only bad thing was that we couldn’t sleep because
we needed to remember the stations because there was risk of ticket
control.

Croatian border was ok. We arrived in Zagreb in early afternoon. Sunny
and Nataly waited for us and we went to Zboux flat to eat Stenko joined
us there and we went to park and then to tourist walk around. The
presentation was at mama internet caffe where people from Zagreb have
subversive nights with movies discussions and stuff. Cole that organized
this presentation was there, also there was our friend Deeda and some
people we haven’t seen for a while. There was Marc with what are you
reading distribution and cakes. Lot of people showed up, it was great,
place was good. The problem was that we were very tired cause we didn’t
slept whole night. So tiredness mixed with tremor made us sound very bad.
We finished very fast and and discussion was very poor so we were like
very sad. Maybe because it was the first or maybe because we were very
tired, Zagreb presentations was the worst. Please all people we are very
very sorry. We want to thank you all for organization, shelter, great
food, beer, good time, hope to see you soon.

Before sleep we spent some time with Zboux , who is agronomist and has
some very very interesting stories. We send him kisses now. Early in the
morning we cached train for Maribor. In Zagreb we were hanging around in t
shirts on the way to border it was snowing. On border it was like little
problemmy, they’ve putted my bags out and stuff but they let us trough. We
arrived on the station and Joseph was waiting for us with his friend from
Gratz but i cant recall her name. We went to pekarna complex. There were
our friend Vlanto, then people from hungary Maxigas, Hajne and Daniel, our
humble friend Sergio from Denmark in Spain, then people from Maribor
Vesna, Ramiz and Mister Director, also there was our friend Raresh who is
legal alien, who is Romanian in Zagreb and his companion Tatjana who is
not an alien cause she is from Zagreb. After fastcore breakfast meeting
started. Maxigas made a report about this already, so we wont write about
it now. We had a short break for lunch that was like in hotel Yugoslavia,
we want to thank two girls that cooked, it was supergreat. Meeting
continued until the late in the night when i went to sleep with some
portugese. Here we want to thank all the people from maribor for visas,
place to stay, great food, organization, and everything. Thank you Joseph,
Vesna, Mister Director, Ramiz thank you everybody.

In the morning we catched a train to Ljubljana, Tine waited for us at the
station, we went to Metelkova place to a infoshop. There was Majda and
some girls from Belgrade to. We went to Rog for a lunch. There was Jeja
with us. Then we returned and checked out the infoshop until the evening.
Pera our friend came so we hanged with her for a while. In the evening
people started to show up. Also Vlanto maxigas hajne Daniel and Sergio
came from maribor. The meeting was ok. There were about 20 30 people.
Afterwards the discussion was also ok. After the meeting we went to rog,
our juggle friends from Pula organized a gig for some tukish boy that as
we understood escaped from immigrand prison and wanted to go to france,
but he didn’t had money or papers so he was playing his shargie to collect
some. After with our new friend talija we returned to metelkova to queer
party which was over, but we had fun, there was also barbra from
Bratislava. Finaly we went to infoshop to sleep but Iva and Sergio started
a flamenco salsa samba tango electro party. We talked Sergio and barbra to
go with us to Rijeka and they said yes.
Here we want to thank everybody from metelkova very much, Thank you Tine,
Matej, Jeja, Pera, People from the infoshop, People from the rog,
Juggulars from pula, friend with skateboard talija, thank you all very
much.

It was horrible, we woke up in half past five, we were like zombies,
Sergio didn’t want to wake up, Iva smashed his balls, Barbra decided not
to go, it was hell, we were late, we were running for trains with 50 kilo
bags, it was a nightmare but we made it. On the Croatian border there was
no problem. In rijeka Leonardo and Broona came, took us to ivex to skatula
infoshop. Then they all left to sabotage some nato presentation and
Sergio and i were sleeping. Then Pendula came and he took us to index for
meal. The wind was blowing like hell, in croatia bura meens evil
sadomasochistic wind from the deepest places in hell. Later in the evening
we had a meeting. We couldn’t play any movie, cause we lost it in
Ljubljana, but we are really thankfull to people from metelkova, that
found it and send it to us. So we presented our stuff and people were
really interested, some of them wants to come to the conference and we
collected bunch of mails and we talked about the anti nato campaign that
they are preparing. also we talked why there are no squats in rijeka and
whole croatia (it is interesting that people from Zagreb are planning to
squat some house these days and also they are working on some really
interesting projects, its permacultural community, we hope to visit them
to). Also Sergio once again told his story about the energy and people got
really interested and exchanged e mails with him. So it was really good.
We want to thanks leo, bruna, stela, ana, penx and the others.

Tomorrow we got to Sarajevo after traveling like 15 hours and there was a
big chaos, so we couldn’t make a presentation there cause ther were some
kind of demos there, but we left materials and talked with the girl and we
are in contact with her so we think that we can do stuff in the future,
also she can make us connected with the other people from bosnia. So
thanks to alsa, boris, darko.

So the last station was skopje and it was really grate. People were really
hospitable and they put really lots of effort to organize us presentation,
so there were like 50 or even more people. We spoke on our bad Macedonian,
but we understood each other, cause although there are borders, we don’t
really feel it like “another” country. so we also collect bunch of e mails
and there was good discussion going on afterwards. And we brought really
lost of stuff from our distro and people took it like everything! It was a
new experience for us for sure! So thanks a lot to vasko, tina, mungos,
acika and the others for food, sleeping, taking care of us and all they
were like really super hospitable!

General impressions: we are really satisfied with the tour. There were
some bad moments, but also some really incredible moments. We think that
all in all did a good job. We made conections, informed people. But you
have to realize that situation in this part of balkan is specific. But we
made conections and belive that things are going to get better now. Also
for us personal this was a great experience, cause we met a lot of people
and heard a lot of interesting stuff, and this was really great
opportunity for us to come to slovenia and we are really thankfull to all
the people who helped this to happen, we wont write their names, but you
people know who you are, so thank you!

So now we have to go and make plans for Romania

See you at the barricades.