This page is still forming ,or as they like to say "under construction".
I want this page to be a small footprint in cyberspace of me and my family and our life in third worldish south-east Europe.
Who are we? Our pictures .Small young family consisted of Zdenka mother of our little girls Jovana and Jelena ,and me ,Sasha ,the proud father . We are living in what was long time ago a small and at that time prosperous socialist country called Yugoslavia. To cut the too long and not yet fully explained story ,the small country has been destructed in series of small bloody civil wars. One social catastrophe pulled another ,so we went from economical crises to breakdown of economy ,maniacal nationalism ,mass hypnosys conducted by the Evil (with the big E) State Radio Television to wars that now show themselves completely senseless ,hyperinflation that is comparable only to the hyperinflation in Germany between world wars. Economic sanctions by the UN (read USA) have given the final blow to the already dying economy of socialist gigantic firms with thousands of workers going to illusional jobs doing nothing and receiving almost nothing for pay. Imagine a supermarket that is working and has nothing on shelves, think about hospitals without medical materials ,no drugs no bandage ,no needles nothing. Imagine buying gas for a car on the street black market in 1l bottles. Imagine cold winters without electricity for 6 hours ,then few hours online then again darkness. Eh ,there are many memories most of them bad. Basically I have almost not moved from our house these ten years but have survived many things.
Imagine sleeping in the basement during US bombing attacks ,a missile had hit ,I was later told it was a tomahawk missile , empty gas reservoirs that were about 1000 to 2000 m away from my house .I remember that as the first time I was really scared .The house has shacked like a empty cola can ,and the earth has moved like in a earthquake.
Buh ,then the Regime. A small independent radio station in Belgrade was the only candle in the dark ,something that helped me a lot to stay sane. Thanks B92 .You cant imagine how stupid and cruel can get a regime which thinks that it is indispensable and the only truth .It was a disgusting oriental tyranny like the ones Toqueville describes as counter to the democracies ,that is empowered with new electronic media mainly the State Television the TV Basttile as we called it. The TV news , the famous Dnevnik was a series of brutal and maniacal lies combined with subtle and not so subtle indoctrination. I had stopped to listen to these lies pretty soon and that was a reason that I had managed to stay insane ,unlike many other people. You would not believe how ordinary people ,good ,decent people ,can get almost crazy by TV mind manipulation.
Then ,the Money. I have now 30 years and have not worked when put together a full year. Mainly odd jobs or jobs that I made myself. I was determinated in not cooperating with the regime so much that it had make a big time problems. I could work only maybee in big firms that have worked only fictionally ,but I never had the opportunity offered to me. I remember the day my mother coming home crying with her monthly salary ,it was 1.5 DM (german mark) worth enough to buy basket of apples. I will not forget that scene as long as I breathe. Those were the day when we even had not enough to eat. The only one job offer to me was to be a policemen ,which I had in my desperate condition ready to accept but then after a few days of thinking I had rejected the offer. I did not want to beat my people and take part in the criminal gang called the State.
It was uneven battle ,on one side a repressive state with all its control capabilities and on other small individual ,me ,with only my determination not to cooperate with the monster. Seems to me that monster had loosed for some reason. It is hard not to cooperate in world like this was. Almost everything was under regime control ,you have to obey if you wanted anything ,so I tried not to want anything. It was a hard mission and I have endured so much because my parents had a small cash reserves because they had worked in Germany for some times. It was not big ,mind it ,just few hundreds dollars and some valuables that had been sold. But it was real hard ,extreme voluntary simplicity was the discipline that I runt in. Lets not get in too much details ,many people in the world are suffering from hunger and deep poverty at this moment ,but for the sake of the story ,my thinking is that it is pretty hard to drop from relative prosperity to miserable poorness. What you dont know dont hurts but when you remember much better times it is hard to cope with the harsh present .
Also there is not only the material factor that causes pain ,there are also other things you need to survive. The society wants you to fit in ,no matter what. They put indirect pressure on you when direct one dont work. There is no respect for a person who refuses to work and generally not cooperate in what is now clear a society that is deeply dysfunctional if that is a good word for the condition.
The only way acceptable to me to live in such condition was to be as much self reliant as I could be. That was the main reason that attracted me to the homesteading ideas. The only problem was that I had no land to live on, just a small apartment in a small province town. Thus I began to explore no land paths ,from there on prompted my interest in beekeeping. Also the interest in masonry stoves ,I wanted to start a small business that would help to solve our financial troubles. I had learned much from the internet ,especially from a group of people on the homestead mailing list ,(thanks Gene, Tvo ,Rob ,clanskeens and all others ) ,these people are walking treasure of homestead knowledge and wisdom.
Now ,after the bloodless revolution of the 5 october 2000 the evil regime has gone to history ,but the poorness is still main problem in Serbia ,and my prediction is that it will be a problem for long time.
I am trying to make a living by working in the masonry stove business but it is very hard ,almost impossible to achieve something like this here. The politics has changed ,but still the main rule here is to cope with the mainstream ,if you want to live by mean of small business people gave you strange looks, at least until you begin to earn heaps of cash ...
They are not aware of the possibilitys hard work in some fertile field gives to a man. Strange statement from someone who has worked so little isnt it?
My current problems are to get the equipment I need to start producing parts for ceramic stoves called kachelofens in Germany. This is potential very lucrative business here because very small number of businesses here works in this field.
Also I am trying to establish a apiary ,this is boot hobby ,that I am exploring for years now and potential sideline business. I have decided to give a try to TBH way of beekeeping ,exploring organic beekeeping methods as fare as I can get without using chemicals. My first couple of hives had failed because of my reluctant usage of anti varroa chemicals. Now I have made my hives , ten of them and they are waiting for tennants.
My wife had worked in a textile shop for years as salesperson ,but now she is jobless. It had take a bit of encouragement to her ,she is a womens tailor and she has golden hands as the local proverb says. Zdenka was very surprised with what she made with her scissors ,needles and old sewing Singer machine. The few customers were also pleasantly surprised and number of her customers started to rise.
Our childrens Jovana and Jelena have also their view of good times and of what is needed to accomplish.It is mainly good explained by a simple word FUN.
Life is incredible hard to live,
life is good
Cheers,
Sasha
These are links to my brother's website's