Visit to Serbia
During one of our first visits to Serbia, we ended up in a local café with Aleksandar, who was then working as an architect at NoviCAD. The workday was done, and it was time to really get to know each other. While enjoying the live music and local rakija, the conversation turned to the Netherlands. It turned out Aleksandar had once been there as a student. “Amsterdam, of course,” we assumed. But no… it wasn’t Amsterdam, and Aleksandar had to dig deep into his memory. It was Warffum, in the north of Groningen, where he had performed with his dance group at a folk dance festival.
That moment got us thinking. Events from the past thirty years — such as the breakup of Yugoslavia and the hardship that followed on one side, and the growing strength of the European Union on the other — have sometimes made Eastern Europe feel distant. But that’s just the surface. Beneath it, we share more than we think — and we could feel that, right there in that café.