The Steppes of Dubrovnik

Well, here we are again, in the last two days of our trip. We haven’t traveled in some time now, first with Covid forcing us to cancel a trip to the Dolomites in 2020, and then again after with health issues, same result.

We came back to the Dolomites this time, but scaled back from the older times. Our longest trek this trip was seven miles with 1,500 feet of climbing, staying in the same hotel every night. In times past we went hut-to-hut with miles between them (refugios they are called), and challenging ascents of three or more thousand feet, one time four. I like to think we’ll get back to it, but in the back of my mind I think not, not with arthritic knees. I don’t take any kind of pain relief medicine, not even Advil, as I am pretty sure they are not good for us and are habit-forming. And, as I hear, they quit working after time.

We are in Dubrovnik, Croatia, for the next two days. One time, in Nepal on the Anna Purna circuit (we did half of it), we were tasked with climbing 3,500 steps one day. We knew it was coming and so were mentally ready, and with all stuff like that the mind forgets the pain and discomfort. I remember the steps and our Sherpa, Promone, out ahead of us as always and smiling a beautiful smile. “Is it steep ahead?” I ask. “Nepali flat”, he answers, meaning yes, very steep.

Dubrovnik is Nepali flat. We have climbed and descended at least 2,000 steps. And yes, it is a tourism center and Game of Thrones was shot here, and yes, we went on a GoT walking tour. Our guide showed us images of places where certain scenes were shot, most memorable the walk of shame, where Cersie was forced to walk nude as she was pelted with spit and excrement. That scene, shot with a body double since Lena Headey was pregnant, caused quite a stir here so that the entire set was walled off. There are, I guess, Peeping Toms about, who wanted to see from a distance what the whole world would see close-up anyway. 

About GoT, “Did you like the ending?” our guide asked? No one did, but it is very hard to wrap up a multi-level show like that. They did their best. I remember reading long tracts and watching videos about how they should have done things differently. I remember when Marc Maron sat down to interview one of the producers or writers. He opened saying something like “Well, it’s your show. You can end it any way you like.” That was the proper take on it, I think.

I was much more into events in the early 1990s than I am now, thinking news was real, but some bad things happened here. We told our neighbor Tom we were coming to Croatia, and he said “Why would you want to go there?” He’s a nice and good man, former military, and was in a standoff with Serbian forces here at a bridge, and it was going to be nasty, but then the Serbs withdrew. Tom was otherwise wounded in other combat and carries the reminders, every night taking medication to numb his back so he can sleep, and working, always working, felling trees, running a jackhammer, all to keep his mind off constant pain. I offer him nothing but deep respect for the price he paid, no matter anyone’s political views. His suffering is real.

In case you were not yet born in 1991, Yugloslavia, then known as the Socialist Federal Republics of Yugoslavia (SFRY), broke apart. I have a hard time not thinking that the US and NATO did not have a lot to do with the breakup, but from the standpoint of American news reporting, we were mere observers. But the six republics that formed Yugoslavia – Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Macedonia, all fell within the shadow of the former Soviet Union. That made them a hot zone. 

Just as with the U.S. and our own civil war, the breakup of formerly unified countries is a dangerous phenomenon, a vacuum that foreign powers rush in to fill. Lincoln, who did not care a whit about slaves, knew that if the South broke free, soon thereafter would follow further breakups, with perhaps Texas* once again splitting away, along with perhaps conquered territories stolen from Mexico, including California, maybe even New England. The whole of North American would have been “balkanized,” a term now in use, but not then. 

So it strains credulity that the US and NATO were not deeply involved in the SFRY breakup. The U.S. seemed particularly interested in the province of Kosovo, part of Serbia, and oddly I heard that particular aspect described as “fixing Eisenhower’s mistake” from the close of WWII. I’ve no idea of that background. I paid more attention in those days, being wonkier than now, and I carry with me the idea that the U.S. wanted to establish a military base in Kosovo. Hence the ‘deep concern’ for Albanians and Bosnians of the region.

But this could be whacky history, as I am going on the memories of a well-read yet poorly informed person of 41 years of age who had an opinion about everything, many of them happening to derive from Noam Chomsky. Set me straight if you must.

This I know from current reports received via the GoT foot tour and a cab driver or two: Serbian and Montenegrin forces bombed Dubrovnik and laid siege for four years 1991-95, laying waste to the city. Many died, there was rubble strewn all about. I remember seeing news reports at that time, though the name “Dubrovnik” meant nothing to me. My geography then was all screwed up, thinking that if one were to drive south from Croatia, one would end up in Syria and Israel rather than Greece. I had the Adriatic and Aegean Seas conflated into a geographic mess.

Croatia earned its independence in 1995, and a rebuilding effort ensued. Money poured in from all over, and Dubrovnik was rebuilt. The orange roofs seen in Game of Thrones are from the rebuilding era. It became a tourist center, and with GoT, madness ensued. It is still held captive by that series. (The current prequel, House of Dragons, is being filmed in Spain and Portugal.)

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*My own take on the Texas war of independence is this: Texas was a slave-dependent cotton economy, and when Mexico outlawed slavery there in 1830, John Wayne and Davy Crockett arrived on the scene to rescue them from the depravity of Santa Anna.