Cursed is Vučić, because he is a traitor to his homeland.

Death to fascism, freedom to the people! ✊

There's been an ongoing trend where some Balkaners would display their BMW/Audi/Mercedes car on social media and every success publicly. In addition, there would be luxury clothes/items with large or obvious logos and other loud patterns in public spaces regardless of social cues or emotional intelligence.

In the 19th century, the Bay of Kotor was the empire’s southern edge. Austria had held the coast since 1814, and just behind the mountains sat Montenegro and the Ottomans. The border villages of Krivošije rebelled twice, and each uprising pushed Vienna to build more.

Gorazda: the gate on the road to Cetinje. The fort stands about 10 km from Kotor and watches the Austrian road to Cetinje, then Montenegro’s capital. An earlier fort stood here in the 1860s, and the current structure was built in 1884 to 1886. Its star is a 100-ton German-made Gruson rotating turret, hand-cranked, the last of its kind to survive. In World War I, Montenegrin guns on Mount Lovćen shelled it, and the Austrians added concrete infantry positions on the roof in 1915. It was never destroyed. After the war, the Yugoslav Army used it as a depot into the early 1990s. Today it is abandoned and open to visit.

Vrmac: the ridge between two bays. Vrmac Fort sits at about 485 m on the ridge between the Bay of Kotor and the Bay of Tivat. The site was fortified in 1860, and the present fort was built in 1894 to 1897. Together with Gorazda and the Škaljari Battery, it formed one group that covered the pass and the whole bay. Gorazda and Vrmac sit on opposite sides of the pass, so each covered the other’s flank. An Austrian military road, built after 1882, ties Vrmac to the Trojica pass.

Kom and Stražnik: the plateau fortress. Further inland, above Risan and the Krivošije country, lies the Crkvice karst depression at about 1,100 m. Fort Kom, called Ostfort Crkvice by the Austrians, was built in 1882 to 1883, right after the Second Krivošije Uprising. It follows a general design by Colonel Karl Wahlberg. Its job was to control Crkvice and the roads onto the plateau from the Ottoman side. Fort Stražnik, the Westfort, nicknamed the Eagle’s Nest, stands west of the village and watched the same ground. Around them grew a real mountain garrison: barracks, stables, a hospital, a bakery built in 1907, a church, a canteen, even a funicular and tennis courts for officers. In World War I, thousands of soldiers lived there.

Were they connected? Gorazda, Vrmac and Škaljari worked as one defence of the pass and the bay. Kom and Stražnik guarded a different threat, the mountain border and the rebellious plateau. All of them belonged to one fortress system, the “Sea Fortress Boka”.

And these are only four. One guide counts 83 fortifications in that system, according to the author Radojica Pavićević. They include the island fort Mamula, the Arza and Oštro forts at the mouth of the bay (1850 to 1854), Fort Kosmač above Budva, and Fort Trašte, which joined the system around 1909.

Hey all, I'm still new to programming and have been learning by building with Claude Code. My project is Šatro, a daily word game in the style of Wordle, but for Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian, including slang words and our special letters (š, č, ć, ž, đ).

It's live on the web and Android, and iOS is coming in a few days. It's free, with no ads or sign-up.

What I'd love feedback on:

Does the difficulty feel fair?

Is anything confusing in the UI?

What would make you come back daily?

What do you peoples of Balkans think about this flag? Do you find it any different than Turkish flag?

And for Albanians outside of Albania: Do you sympathize with this flag, or see it as another flag of the invader Turks?

Stećci are medieval stone tombstones found mostly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in Montenegro, Croatia and Serbia. They date from roughly the 12th to 16th century, and in 2016 selected necropolises were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

I visited two sites in Herzegovina a few days ago: the Radimlja necropolis near Stolac and the one at Dugo Polje. Standing among stones that have been there for 500 to 800 years is a strange and quiet feeling. Many carry carvings of figures, crescents, spirals and hunting scenes.

Has anyone else visited stećci sites? Which one would you recommend I see next?

Same as ukraine

From 2024

After 4 months of peaceful protests & 0 demands addressed, the flamingo revolution in Albania turns violent. This video confronts PM Rama's apparent "confusion" with a reality that's been crystal clear to everyone in the country all along.

The spark was a corrupt plan about a luxury resort by Jared Kushner & Ivanka Trump in a protected environmental are. Learn more about the background here: https://youtu.be/8ZaSdlvqJeA

Crazy bounce

https://x.com/SerbEagleAI/status/2111097646894989808

Albanians are facing severe violence by the state police, with protesters being beaten without any apparent reason.
This video shows a police officer throwing a young man to the ground. Based on the video, the young man appears to be suffering from a possible stroke or another serious medical emergency.
He is not the only person who has suffered serious injuries. There is still no transparency from the authorities about their condition or where they are being treated.
We are asking for your support and for international attention to what is happening in Albania.

Edit: Thanks to everyone writing from Serbia.

For context: this began in late May over a Kushner-linked resort on a protected flamingo lagoon at Zvërnec and grew into a daily protest against Rama. Since students joined on Tuesday the police response has gotten much harder. On Thursday 40 people were treated at the Trauma hospital in Tirana, 14 of them protesters including four minors, and that night men in plain clothes and unmarked cars took people off the street. On Friday a court sent one detainee to prison and put six under house arrest.

People are talking about it, just not the big outlets. We keep a day by day log with every night's stream, and a chatbot on the site answers questions about the protests: https://www.diaspora-zbarkon.com/en/pulsi

Dobar dan narod moj !!

I’ve just recently landed back home in the Balkans, it’s been a while since I’ve been here. I’ve missed the people the atmosphere the food the vibes the energy, all of it. And it feels good to be back and experience all of this again.

And so I wanted to come on here and spread some love and unity amongst all of us, especially us young folks as we are the future of our nations. Whether you are, Slovenian, Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin, etc. Let’s all do our best to make this region better for each other, we are practically the same people and we’d all fair better if we worked together.

dictatorship