Youth of Serbia.

 

 

"I have this dream that keeps recurring, and I never normally remember my dreams. 

I'm stuck inside a house looking outside... There's a big, open ocean outside of the house. I go outside, I'm swimming out, it's so big and endless and I feel so free. Then it takes me to a tunnel, and I find out it's leading me back to the house. 

I remember it so vividly."

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Serbia is a fascinating country. The series of Yugoslav wars that occurred there from 1991 - 2001 resulted in the dissolution of the larger state into many smaller countries. Events that have had lasting affects on Serbia's current economic, social and psychological health. I learn this from Marija, a trainee psychotherapist, fascinated by her own and others' trauma.

And despite this collective and personal pain, there is something so communal and resilient in the social atmosphere and in every individual l meet on both trips in the summer and winter.

 

Serbia's extreme winters and summers are perhaps metaphoric of the extremities of its social condition: of the after affects of a ten year war and the collective trauma its citizens have lived through, yet the strength in unity that lies between them. That despite the difficult past and present, there is an undeniable sense of pride in being Serbian.

Strong ties held together by difficult shared experiences, and by evenings spent around tables eating home cooked food and drinking warming shots of Rakia.