After every "historical event" I recommend long walks. That's how I've been saving my nerves and other people's nerves for the last 13 years. That's why I spent the past, interesting weekend, when they took Milosevic out of Užička 11, mostly strolling the tame streets of Novi Sad. It was quite deserted, the people sat by the TV, to see what would happen, if someone would die right before their eyes and if the once beloved Leader would come out of his fortress with handcuffs on his hands. At least that's how it is in American movies.
Everyone here, on this beautiful Balkan peninsula, knew they weren't going to see some kind of samurai ending to this soap opera. Although in our country, with fiddles and brandy, we often talk about honor and dignity - nobody is inclined to anachronistic demonstrations of human strength, so it is not expected of national leaders either. With our neighbors the Hungarians, not to single out the Japanese, things are somewhat different. For example, on April 3, 1941, when Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy decided to join Hitler's attack on Yugoslavia, Prime Minister Count Pal Teleky committed suicide. In his farewell letter, he wrote: "Hungary trampled on the word of eternal friendship with Yugoslavia out of cowardice." We sided with scoundrels, we will be vultures - the dirtiest nation. I didn't prevent it, it's my fault!" That's how this aristocrat with bizarre political views killed himself. He passed anti-Semitic laws, but he didn't like fascists. However, he could not live up to the given word, even though it was only about one diplomatic interstate agreement that he signed. In our country, such an understanding of honor is not very widespread. After all, the Serbs have a weak position with the aristocracy, due to unfortunate historical circumstances and the libertarian spirit.
But let's get back to the walk. For me, a real walk is when you walk alone. This is the only way to ensure full concentration and full commitment to wandering. And it is important not to rush. As soon as you see someone walking fast along the Danube Quay, it is clear to you that it is a person with a heart attack or a sugar addict. These people are under special pressure and they walk for a living. I walk to pass the time. That's why I like long walks.
Once upon a time, when I was a bit younger, I thought that walking aimlessly was a pointless waste of energy. I was particularly allergic to long walks, since I served in the army in the 141st Infantry Regiment of the JNA in Zagreb, in the company of machine gunners. My God, how hard that iron was - especially the first ten kilometers. Although everyone claims that the service in the mountain infantry is much worse, my opinion is that the Polish one, where I was, is the most boring and the most difficult - since the landscape is always the same on the flat. Especially when it gets blurry in front of your eyes at the fiftieth kilometer.
Fortunately, in the last thirty years, in addition to all the past wars, I did not hide my weapons and I was not forced to march forcibly, so now I walk for a long time, although I have no dog or any other company. My father was also a supporter of walking. However, he did not go out, but walked around the room, so his mother once said that he would go crazy because of that. That's what he had left from prison. Although he talked very little about it, he once explained to me that walking during the first five years of confinement, which he spent in solitary confinement only two and a half meters long, was exactly what saved his health. He developed the technique of turning so much that he almost had the illusion that he was in motion without any pause. I usually turn around at the Futoška market, as soon as I look at this holy place of the market economy. Then there are more variants. Or back down the same Boulevard of Liberation, or through a tangle of alleys through Rotkvarija. In this second variant, I peer into the lighted windows to see if the TV broadcast of some historical event has ended. Mostly I see slum furniture. The father of the family in a half-lying position on the couch, surrounded by children - and the TV is working.
Although I deal with history as a hobby and although I have been a journalist for the last 13 years, when supposedly historical events were catching up with each other, I cannot boast that they were literally unfolding before my eyes. For example, when the SK of Yugoslavia was disintegrating at the 13th Congress, during the first two days I spent all the money from my daily allowance, so I had to return to Novi Sad before the famous departure of the Slovenes from the Sava Center. I have to admit that even on October 5, 2000, I lay down after lunch to take a nap, and when I woke up, I saw on television that the federal assembly was burning, and concluded that democracy had won. I'm already quite used to history happening without me, because for some reason I'm neither a creator of history, nor a chronically direct witness, although I'm engaged in the (supposedly exciting) profession of journalism. And this "last act" of the Milošević era, between March 30 and April 1, I met mostly with a shudder. I was least haunted by the question of what would happen at Užička 11 and whether Milošević and his gang would "kill themselves" defending their patriotic ideas - I was more involved in the suffering of my colleagues who, for 36 hours, whined in front of the Residence, at Topčiderska zvezda, in front of the Palace of Justice. Journalism is returning to its original values - that is, with good feet. That's why I walk all the time.
