{"id":214280,"date":"2020-09-30T04:43:18","date_gmt":"2020-09-30T04:43:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=214280"},"modified":"2020-10-03T05:38:48","modified_gmt":"2020-10-03T05:38:48","slug":"aleksandar-of-macedonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=214280","title":{"rendered":"Aleksandar of Macedonia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Linh Dinh \u2013 The Unz Review Sept 29, 2020<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Can I be frontally honest and even a bit shameless with you? (No, not that, but maybe later.) What I\u2019m trying to say, and do brace yourself here, what I\u2019m really trying to bare, fess up and gently confide here, behind a curtain and under a sheet, sotto voce, is that I simply do not like burek<\/a>!<\/span><\/h5>\n
Shit, man, but if you ever witnessed my buddy Aleksandar wolf down one of these, you\u2019d think he hadn\u2019t eaten in a month, if ever. What\u2019s the hurry, Alex? There\u2019s plenty more, like tons. It\u2019s hard to take five steps in the Balkans without having another greasy burek slap you in the face, with bits of minced meat, cheese or spinach splattering from Subotica to Burgas, if not Istanbul.<\/h5>\n
I\u2019m in North Macedonia, thanks to Alex. In 2016, he wrote me, \u201cWould like to thank you about your wonderful description of your travels. It feels like am traveling myself.\u201d Answering, I vaguely expressed a wish to see his homeland. And, \u201cWhen I just got to Germany, I took a wrong train, and a Macedonian woman helped me out. She was very lovely.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\"\"<\/a>Seeing that I was in Belgrade two months ago, Alex insisted I come to Skopje, so last week, I finally did. My all-night bus pulled into town at 5AM<\/span><\/a>. There was a casino at the station, with two bald and burly guys standing outside, one very loud and smirking, his eyes lit up. Cabbies addressed me in terse English. A travel agency advertised express buses daily to Istanbul<\/a><\/span>. All roads still lead to Constantinople, you better believe it. I slid coins into the coffee machine. Revived, I also felt grateful to have a smooth border crossing, because you just don\u2019t know, man, especially during this time of the coronavirus.<\/h5>\n
I had no idea what Alex looked like. Spotting me, he shouted like a Texan. His English was rapid and fluent, which made me suspect he had lived in the States, but Alex had only spent two months in Houston.<\/h5>\n
\u201cDid you go anywhere else while you were there?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cNo, I was working.\u201d<\/h5>\n
Heading to Vladimirovo, we were in his tiny, beat up car, with his quiet son in the back. It was still dark. Dim apartment blocks sped by. Now and then, a radiant gas station.<\/h5>\n
\u201cHow did you learn English?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cI taught myself.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cNo way, man! Seriously?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cWhen I was a kid, I spent all my time at the US Information Agency, reading.\u201d Alex\u2019s English vocabulary is larger than most Americans\u2019.<\/h5>\n
Alex has also worked with Brits and Americans, he said, mostly Texans. His current employer is Norwegian. As a project or inventory manager, Alex has been sent to Norway, Chile, Italy, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, and for fun, he\u2019s traveled to Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Turkey and, of course, all over the former Yugoslavia. \u201cBut I\u2019ve never paid for a plane ticket! I can\u2019t afford it.\u201d Although his \u20ac600 a month salary is excellent for Macedonia, he has a wife and two kids to support. Alex\u2019s son needs special care.<\/h5>\n
Supplementing his income, Alex gives encyclopedic walking tours of Skopje, and he\u2019s even won two TV quiz shows, with another appearance next month. Nearly everything we\u2019ve discussed, Alex knew way more about it than I did, not that\u2019s saying much. My ignorance is encyclopedic.<\/h5>\n
Vladimirovo is only ten miles from Bulgaria. The 2002 census counted 861 people, with everyone Macedonian except for two Serbs, with no Gypsies or Albanians, which is extremely rare in North Macedonia. Now, Vladimirovo has less than 400 people, with the rest dead or emigrated. The easiest way out is to claim Bulgarian citizenship, through ancestry or bribery, and just like that, you\u2019re in the European Union! About the only ones left are old folks, subsistence farmers and sheep shepherds.<\/h5>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a very rough job. People don\u2019t know. Screaming at all these animals all the time is very stressful. Many of these shepherds have strokes or heart attacks. Most are alcoholics. Many of them can\u2019t get married. Who wants to marry a drunk that smells like sheep?\u201d<\/h5>\n
Alex\u2019s maternal grandparents had a house in Vladimirovo. In its four bedrooms, 19 people slept. By 2000, it was so decayed, hardly anyone wanted it, but Alex\u2019s mom got half, which she then gave to Alex. After she broke a leg falling down stairs four years ago, Alex has been taking care of her. She also has Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/h5>\n
\u201cMy mom gave me life twice. Once, when I was born, obviously, then she gave it to me again when I was eight. I loved Bruce Lee, you see. You know that movie where he fought in the glass house? I made my own nunchucks, with two pieces of wood, some chain and two nails. After I saw the movie, I went home, played with my nunchucks and crashed through a glass door.\u201d Alex had to laugh at the memory. \u201cI was bleeding here and here,\u201d he pointed to his arm and neck, \u201cbut my mon did not panic. She stopped my bleeding and told my sister to call an ambulance. It arrived within 15 minutes! I was in the hospital for 23 days. I will always remember that. I will never abandon my mom. I will stay with her until the very end.\u201d<\/h5>\n
After an aunt fell and broke her hip, Alex also took care of her for eight years. \u201cI changed her diaper twice a day. I got her the XXL ones, for extra absorption.\u201d Inheriting her apartment, Alex is renting it out.<\/h5>\n
\"\"<\/a>Vladimirovo is filled with all these picturesque but at least semi-abandoned buildings. Windows miss panes. Daub deprived walls expose wattle<\/a><\/span>. Meandering around, Alex greeted or bantered with everyone, for this soil was his anchor, comfort, blood and deepest resonance, what we should all have. We passed a middle-aged man on his way to picking beans<\/a><\/span>, and a beefy fellow<\/a><\/span> cutting firewood with a tractor-rigged saw. As sheep<\/a><\/span> surged towards us, a dog angrily barked at his charge. A hippo sized pig begged to be petted.<\/h5>\n
\u201cThis is the church. The sexton was a very old man. When he allowed a candle to burn down almost the entire church, he was so heart broken, he died soon afterwards.\u201d Alex shook his head. \u201cMaybe two months afterwards.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\"\"<\/a>Leading me to a chapel<\/span><\/a> in an open field, Alex explained, \u201cSaint Elijah is our village\u2019s patron saint. This is his chapel. Every year, there\u2019s a huge festival. Over there is where we cook the food. Last year, five thousand people came, but this year\u2019s celebration was canceled because of the coronavirus.\u201d<\/h5>\n
When Alex said he was going to a nearby town, Berovo, for a haircut, I decided to join him, for the last one I had was nine months earlier, in Hoi An. With mostly white hair sprouting in all directions, I looked like a wild man or a bum.<\/h5>\n
Deep green and beige plastic strips curtained<\/a><\/span> the barbershop\u2019s door. Barging through them, we found an old man sitting against the back wall, reading a newspaper. The tiny room was covered with pictures or calendars, some going back a decade. Relatives jostled with Jesus, Mary, soccer stars and even Tito<\/a><\/span>, abutted by a crawling nude.<\/h5>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s 86-years-old,\u201d Alex said of the barber<\/span><\/a>.<\/h5>\n
\u201cHow long have you been going here, Alex?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cForever!\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cAnd how long has he been a barber<\/a><\/span>?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\"\"<\/a>Alex asked the old guy<\/a><\/span>, then said, \u201cSince he was sixteen!\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cWow! So he has never had another job\u2026\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/h5>\n
It was my turn to ease onto the ancient chair, which was crafted during the Ottoman Empire, probably, if not the reign of Philip II, Alexander\u2019s daddy. As the old man clicked clicked his scissors all over my head, I thought that one of these days, when the inevitable heart attack knocks him over, he will slit the throat of his last customer, which could have been me that day. Guided by knobby fingers, the extra long razor nudged, glided and skated against my defenseless flesh, without somehow nicking.<\/h5>\n
\u201cNul ne meurt avant son heure,\u201d Montaigne said, but that\u2019s bullshit, amigo. Even if a man lives to be 150, he\u2019s killed way too early, for each of us needs several lifetimes to learn or do anything, and, hopefully, right a fraction of our wrongs.<\/h5>\n
Though death didn\u2019t smooch me that day, its fragrance sure did, for each time the old man leaned over my white sheeted carcass, I could tell he was no longer, you know, holding it all in. We\u2019ll all get there soon enough. Da Vinci, \u201cWhen a man dies, he\u2019ll pass through his own bowels.\u201d<\/h5>\n
During several visits to Berovo, we always ate at the same place, for Alex had his habits, \u201cIn a small town like this, you can\u2019t serve bad food, for words travel fast. Once people complain, you\u2019re done. This place is great, and cheap!\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cHow long have you eaten here?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cDecades.\u201d<\/h5>\n
Alex has his favorite waitress. When another showed up at our table, Alex quite cheerfully asked for Angela.<\/h5>\n
Thinking it a bit odd, I asked, \u201cWas that rude?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cNo, no.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s not offended?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/h5>\n
In her late 40\u2019s, Angela has not had it easy, though you wouldn\u2019t know it from her always cheerful demeanor. Her father was violent to his wife and children, so Angela married at 17 just to escape home. She then moved to southern Serbia.<\/h5>\n
Her husband was a waiter who, soon enough, also beat her. They had a daughter and a son. After 15 years with this brute, Angela returned to Berovo.<\/h5>\n
She then emigrated to Switzerland to pick fruit, before being hired by a fellow Berovian to take care of his senile and incontinent mother. A successful immigrant, he owned a supermarket in Zurich. After the old woman died, Angela came home for good.<\/h5>\n
Last year, Angela visited Berlin for four days and had Chinese food for the first time, she told Alex with a bright smile. (She thought I was Chinese.) Always mirthful, Angela\u2019s truly angelic.<\/h5>\n
Despite all of his traveling, Alex has never eaten Chinese, Japanese, Indian or Thai, and the one time he tried bratwurst, Alex thought it was awful. \u201cI like my own food,\u201d he has said to me several times.<\/h5>\n
Halfway through our meal, a stocky, cheerful man came to our table to say hello. We shook hands. Leaving, he said to me in English for no apparent reason, \u201cThank you very much!\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cHe was a very good soccer player,\u201d Alex said. \u201cWe call him Savi\u0107, after Branko Savi\u0107, you know, the guy who played for the Red Star.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cWhat does he do now?\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cHe lives in Vladimirovo, but has a grocery store in Bevoro. Each morning, he buys milk from farmers, then resell it to the dairy companies.\u201d<\/h5>\n
That evening, we again ran into Savi\u0107, and again he said to me, \u201cThank you very much!\u201d It\u2019s his one English phrase.<\/h5>\n
At least for now, I\u2019m running out of English phrases myself. You think it\u2019s easy to weave, feather, dab, daub and scumble endlessly out of one\u2019s ass? This quick sketch of Vladimirovo and Aleksandar of Macedonia will have to do.<\/h5>\n
\"\"<\/a>Say Macedonia and people will think of Alexander<\/a> <\/span>the Great, if they\u2019ve heard of him, and maybe Mother Teresa<\/span><\/a>, who was born in Skopje. The capital\u2019s recent remake into a rather strident<\/a> Hellenic<\/a><\/span> theme park has been much derided, and we\u2019ll get to it, OK, soon enough. I\u2019m just glad that my introduction to North Macedonia was through its down-to-earth, low-key and honest<\/a><\/span> aspect, so many thanks, Alex!<\/h5>\n
All over the globe, villages like Vladimirovo have been compromised and degraded, if not wiped out completely, but this trend must be reversed if humanity is to have a future. Though it\u2019s hard to believe it during this grim and uncertain moment, that\u2019s exactly what will happen. Soon.<\/h5>\n
Fame, infamy, honor, anecdotes, jokes and songs must be local, and they already are, mostly, in all ways that matter. Gravity will return.<\/h5>\n
Linh Dinh\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> latest book is Postcards from the End of America<\/span><\/a>. He maintains a regularly updated photo blog<\/span><\/a>.<\/em><\/h5>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linh Dinh reflects on life from North Macedonia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=214280"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214306,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214280\/revisions\/214306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=214280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=214280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=214280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}