Somewhere halfway through the first vertical section of the climb, I was absolutely certain that a helicopter would have to come pick me up. I'm not exaggerating. I was glued to the rock, unable to take a single step forward or back. A via ferrata is a one-way path that cannot be reversed.
Eight hours later, I was sitting alone on the highest peak of Berim, at almost 1800 meters above sea level, and watched the last rays of the sun spill over Serbia at the same time, Montenegro i Of Bosnia and Herzegovina and thought about how from that point both the Ibar and Lake Gazivode have a completely different meaning than at the foot - only small traces of the synergy of nature and civilization, while the people who give them these meanings do not even exist as dots.
Between those two pictures stood a man from Zubina Potok, a journalist from Leposavic, a rapper from Osojan, a mother from Pristina with her fifteen-year-old son, and a sentence that I will never forget:
"You don't trust your legs."
But let me start from the beginning.
Photo: Private archiveA 50-meter-long slanted bridge in the final part of the via ferrata
Dragiša's story: Nature is stronger than politics
Until then, I knew Dragisa exclusively as a colleague from the Convention. That day I also met him as a hiking guide from Zubin Potok. I was familiar with his enthusiasm, perseverance, love for nature and Ibarsko Kolašin, his native region. I knew how much time, energy and dedication he invested in making that part of Kosovo between Mokra Gora and Lake Gazivode a recognizable tourist brand. Only when I got there did I realize that Berim was never just a ferrata for him, but an idea.
It all stemmed from one, seemingly simple belief. That nature can be stronger than politics. That people will stay here if they can make a decent profit from their own economic activity. That others will come if they discover how imposing this area is and that tourism around Gazivode can be one of the ways for the survival of the local Serbian community.
Photo: Tanjug/Dimitrije GollLake Gazivode in Kosovo
Cottages around the lake, accommodation and catering facilities, water sports in combination with mountain and hiking facilities and Berim ferrata as the crown. The longest in the Balkans, one of the most impressive in all of Europe, with over four kilometers of wire, four suspension bridges and an ascent through a cave. It joins four rocky peaks of Berim, one of the most beautiful parts of Mokra Gora, a mountain belonging to the Prokletije mountain massif, towards which, for reasons I still haven't determined, from the first meeting I feel some strange combination of magnetic attraction and awe.
I am reading: Between heaven and earth
I didn't go to Berim alone. Sanja, a journalist from Leposavic, was returning to the place where she suffered a serious injury a few years ago. For a long time, she considered whether she would step on the Berim rocks again. Then she decided to make a documentary film about her re-ascent and took along a cameraman who, together with us, climbed the via ferrata with a camera slung around his waist. Eldona came from Pristina. In love with mountains and peaks. It was her teenage son's first via ferrata ascent, as well as mine.
Later, I thought about how all our previous determinations on the via ferrata that day were irrelevant. Who is his name, where is he from, what does he do. The only thing that mattered was whether all the members of the group were safe, whether they needed help, whether we would all reach the goal together as a group.
Most people come to Berim for the suspension bridges. Some because they think that this way they will get rid of their fear of heights. Others, on the other hand, because they have no fear of heights, come with a clear awareness that walking on them, in the literal sense, means being alive between heaven and earth. I belong to the second group. My courage didn't fail me on any of the suspension bridges, including the one that involved just walking on a single wire between two rocky sections. However, on the way to them, I was stopped by an almost vertical rock with metal treads. In a place where, as I found out later, almost no one stops.
Photo: Private archiveView from the cave, pause after the first vertical section
When the legs refuse to obey the head
The head said I could. I knew I was safely strapped in and that the equipment was checked. I knew there was no real danger. But the legs did not want to obey.
Dragiša tried to motivate me with a mixture of impatience, frustration and a sincere desire to succeed. He saw hundreds of people passing that stretch and probably couldn't understand why I stopped there. Then he stopped, looked at me, and did something only really good guides do. He called a younger colleague, a guy whom I saw for the first time in my life that day. Later I found out that he spent almost his entire life in Osojan, a small Serbian enclave south of the Ibar, and that he creates and performs rap music.
Danilo came to me without much drama. He didn't try to convince me that there was nothing to fear. He didn't give me a motivational speech. He just stood in front of me, tied me to him and said, "You don't trust your legs." It wasn't until weeks later, as it took me to process that whole day, that I realized how right he was, because it wasn't about the rock, it was about me.
Photo: Private archiveBench for resting on the rock
All my life I trusted my head. Analysis, plans, control, reason. And the body obviously knew something that the head did not. Danilo showed me where to look. Not to the abyss and not to the top, but to the next support. "Don't think about where you're going to be in a minute. Just focus on one step."
And I made it. Well, one more. Well, one more. I can't explain exactly what happened. I can't say that the fear is gone. It just stopped being more important than the next step. After that section, it was as if someone had unlocked something in me. I started walking. No longer against the mountain, but together with it.
There were several similar sections later, but Danilo was with me until the very end and did not allow a repeat of the blockage from the beginning of the track.
Hanging bridges and indifferent Ibar
Then came the suspension bridges. Those who come to Berim. Air under me. Clouds above me. On both sides only cliffs. At one point, I realized that I was no longer thinking about what happened at the beginning of the trail. A woman who was sure a helicopter would have to come for her simply disappeared. Someone else took her place.
I walked in the sky above Kosovo. That's the only word I can use to describe those minutes of almost disembodied experience.
When we finally all reached the highest peak of Berim, my nails were broken, my knees were scraped, my hands were full of small cuts. I didn't expect the rush of tears. The ones that come when the body does something it was absolutely certain it wasn't capable of.
Photo: Private archiveSuspension bridge-wire
I looked up. From the same point, I saw the highest peaks of Prokletije, Hajla, Pester, Rogozna, the outline of Kopaonik. Part of the Ibar and Gazivoda. From that height, the river did not divide anything. It just flowed. As it has done for centuries, completely indifferent to all attempts by people to turn it into a political category.
Somewhere below me were the submerged Brnjaci and the remains of the court of Queen Jelena of Anjou. I thought how much history was gathered in that small space. How many times have countries, borders, flags and armies changed. And the landscape I was looking at at that moment remained the same.
When the initial euphoria wore off, I moved away from the others. The last rays of the sun were slowly disappearing. The golden light mixed with the gray sky, and the mountain peaks lost their sharp contours and became one big silent silhouette. It is that rare silence in which one can finally hear one's own thoughts.
I was thinking how everything turned out completely different from what I expected. I thought I was coming for ferrata, but I got a lesson in trust. And a much more significant one, which I could not yet recognize at the time.
Photo: Private archiveBridge 27 meters long
North of Kosovo: Vision of tourism instead of barricades
In the last few days, watching the videos of the demolition of the cottages in Gazivode, I returned to the day on Berima again. Dragiša and many other people from the north of Kosovo have been trying for years to make this region a place where people come for nature and tourism, instead of for various kinds of crises.
The only public beach at Gazivode was built with the funds of the European Union in 2013, while the ferrata was built with the support of the Government of the Kingdom of Norway. The "Jezero" hotel, cottages along the shore of Gazivode... it was all part of the same vision: for the mountain and the lake to become a reason for people to stay, for others to want to come, for the north of Kosovo to one day be recognized by tourism, not by barricades.
It was not a naive, but a brave idea, because it implied the belief that the future can be built more slowly than conflicts are renewed.
Today, that vision seems more fragile than ever. The beach and 17 cottages were demolished in the legal confusion which called into question the basic trust in the existence of the rule of law Kosovo. The only hotel was also demolished. on the shore of Gazivode. Now there are police in all those places. Instead of hikers and swimmers, the number of uniforms is increasing.
This trend will certainly call into question the functioning of the Berim ferrata, which was closed this summer due to the current security situation in the north of Kosovo.
The defeat of the idea that development can overcome fear
I can't shake the impression that the very idea of this space is changing before our eyes. The region that tried to live off nature becomes a security zone. It's not just a defeat for the people who invested their work here. Dragiša, or the father and son from the Jakšić family, who we have been looking at for days, crushed by helplessness over the ruins of the "Jezero" hotel. It is not only the defeat of the authorities in Belgrade and Pristina, nor the defeat of the Serbian local community.
It is the defeat of an idea. The idea that development can be stronger than fear. That tourism can be more sustainable than conflict. That people can stay because they see a future, not because they have nowhere to go. That others, like me, can come here for their own life lessons. To learn how important trust is. Both in yourself and in others. And how sometimes it's only necessary to take one, really small step when we can't see a way out. Maybe that's why today, more than then, I understand why Berim changed me so much.
Photo: KossevDemolition of cottages in Gazivode
Not because of ferrata, but because of people. Because of Sanja from Leposavic, who returned to Berim to face her fear after the accident, after which she was lowered by mountaineers from Peć with Berim for hours. And not only did she come back, but she also made a film about that return, so that as many people as possible would know about Berim. Because of Eldona, who decided that her son's first ferrata experience would be right there and who tied Bojana's shoelaces whenever she noticed they were untied. Easy, as if they have known each other all their lives, even though they met that day. Because of Danilo from Osojan, who in thirty seconds gives a diagnosis for which people pay years of psychotherapy.
I believed that it was possible for Ibarski Kolašin and the north of Kosovo to become known for them. By people who lead others up the mountain, by "climbers", as the worker at the gas station in Zubin Potok called us that morning on the way to Berim. After swimming in the lake. On the beach where people laugh, instead of crying on it now. After sunsets over Gazivode.
Because that is the north of Kosovo that I met that day. And which, despite everything, I refuse to forget.
The author is the coordinator of the National Convention on the European Union
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